Consultation hub

In January 2025 your views on proposed changes to enhance the opportunities for public participation and review SEPA’s Fit and Proper person test in line with the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018.

In the consultation we wanted to gather views on:

1. Proposed changes to the SEPA guidance on public participation by adding a requirement for prospective applicants to engage in public consultation at the pre-application stage in the Public Participation Statement.

2. Proposed changes to the SEPA guidance on the criteria we will apply in determining whether a person is a fit and proper person to hold a registration or permit (‘Guidance On Who Can Hold an Authorisation: ‘In Control’ and ‘Fit and Proper Person’ Tests’).

The consultation was open from 6 January 2025 to 31 March 2025.

In total, we received 55 responses to this consultation.

Overall the response to both questions was positive and in favour of the changes proposed.

Responses agreed with adding pre-application engagement to some permit applications and provided suggestions as to how best an applicant could fulfil this requirement.

On the Fit and Proper person test, responses agreed with changes around asking applicants for non environmental convictions

We carefully considered your feedback and made several changes to our guidance on public participation and the fit and proper person test.

The updated ‘Public Participation Statement’ and our guidance ‘On Who Can Hold an Authorisation: In Control and Fit and Proper Person are now available’.

We published a summary of these changes in our Consultation Digest (July 2025).

For your views on changes to SEPA charges for the marine fish farm sector to recover the costs of environmental monitoring to investigate the interaction between sea lice from marine fish farms and wild salmon and sea trout.

We received 12 responses to the consultation. Respondents from the fish farming sector recognised that it was appropriate, in principle, for SEPA to recover the costs of sea lice-related monitoring from fish farm operators. They had several concerns about the details of the proposals and told us it was important that charges paid by fish farmers were exclusively for recovering the costs of monitoring sea lice interactions with wild fish (i.e. not other pressures); the monitoring must be more effective than existing monitoring; and, to avoid duplication and unnecessary costs, the monitoring must replace planning permission monitoring requirements. Most respondents from organisations involved in the conservation and management of wild salmon and sea trout told us that they supported the changes in charges and considered that the proposed monitoring programmes would be a significant improvement in how sea lice/wild salmon and sea trout interactions are monitored.

We considered your feedback carefully. We agree with many of the points raised, including that the costs recovered are exclusively the costs of investigating pressure from sea lice from fish farms; the monitoring being carried out under planning permissions should be superseded; monitoring must be scientifically designed to best provide the evidence required; and advice from stakeholder advisory groups should be sought and considered in planning the monitoring for 2026 and beyond, reviewing results and adapting monitoring as appropriate. For points that we have not taken forward, we have explained why we consider the approach we proposed to be more appropriate. You can find information about our consideration of each of the points raised in our Consultation Digest.

For your views on proposed standard conditions for regulating registration-level activities under the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018 (EASR). We explained the conditions for each activity and, where needed, why they were considered necessary.

We received 24 responses. Most respondents responded positively, and most supported most of the proposals. When respondents disagreed with the proposals, we asked them to provide a rationale explaining why.

We considered your feedback carefully and revised or clarified certain conditions. We scaled requirements to risk, simplified terminology, improved transparency, added flexibility, and updated or confirmed relevant codes. Where proposals were supported, we are proceeding as planned.

Our Consultation Digest summarises what you told us and the actions we’ve taken. The Consultation Response provides more detail on the proposals, responses, and next steps