Ways to contact us
Enquiries
For general enquiries including information about our functions such as complaints and enforcement, scrutiny, and advice on environmental law. Please check our useful contacts and information page before contacting us to make sure we are the right organisation for your enquiry. You may also want to read our FAQs to understand more.
Email: enquiries@theoep.org.uk
Telephone: 03300 416 581*
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. If you are unable to speak to someone you can leave a voice message and a member of the team will return your call.
*Calls costs the same as a call to a normal home or business landline.
Address:
Office for Environmental Protection
Wildwood
Wildwood Drive
Worcester
WR5 2QT
We aim to respond within 10 working days.
Media/communications
If you are a journalist or are making a communications enquiry and would like to contact the OEP, please email:
Please note the Press Office email is monitored Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
Recruitment
If your query is about recruitment, please email:
Please note we do not accept unsolicited CVs or approaches from recruitment agencies. Our vacancies are advertised on our website:
You can also submit your environmental law related enquiry in the form below
Contact form
Complaints about our service and positive feedback
We welcome feedback from those who have interacted with us and recognise the value of complaints and compliments in informing our service development. If you have a compliment or are unhappy with the service we have provided, please contact us by email or post.
Please include 'For attention of Complaints Manager - Complaint about our service' or 'For attention of Complaints Manager - Feedback about our service' in your subject line
Address
Complaints Manager
Office for Environmental Protection
Wildwood
Wildwood Drive
Worcester
WR5 2QT
What are service complaints?
When talking about ‘service complaints’ we mean concerns about the service we have provided to you. Complaints about public authorities’ compliance with environmental law can be submitted through our statutory complaints process. You can find out more about this process here: What we can investigate.
When should service complaints be submitted?
Service complaints should be submitted as soon as possible, and no later than 3 months after the issue arose. If there are exceptional reasons why you have not been able to submit your service complaint within this time frame, please let us know.
What can we consider as part of our service complaints process?
We do not offer a right to have the substance of our decisions reviewed or appealed. However, we value you raising any issues about how your complaint was handled. In this regard, you can bring to our attention any feedback on your experience of our processes and procedures through our service complaints process.
How we will handle a service complaint
The Complaints Manager will review your concerns. Once they have carried out their review, they will write to you telling you what further action, if any, we will take.
The Complaints Manager will also advise you on further options for progressing your service complaint, either within the OEP or with an alternative body, such as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) – see further detail on the PHSO below.
Concerns about OEP decisions
The OEP has a mission to protect and improve the environment by holding government and other public authorities to account. Where we act, we will act strategically. Our enforcement function is different from that of, for instance, an Ombudsman as our complaints process is not one of individual dispute resolution. It is not intended that the OEP will investigate every individual complaint received. Instead, receiving complaints allows us to gather information which may inform our work. Given this, we appreciate there are likely to be occasions where complainants are dissatisfied with our response.
It is not the role of the service complaints process to reconsider the substance of a statutory complaint or review or reopen a prior determination.
If you have concerns about how your case has been handled, please specifically outline these matters as part of your service complaint.
What options are there if I remain dissatisfied?
If you remain dissatisfied following our consideration of your service complaint, you can ask your MP to refer the matter to Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). The PHSO's role is to investigate complaints referred by MPs from members of the public who feel they have suffered an injustice through poor administration by government departments and certain public organisations including the OEP.
The PHSO is independent of the government and the organisations it investigates. It has wide-ranging powers to investigate complaints and its services are free.
For further details, you can contact the PHSO's helpline on 0345 015 4033. The helpline is currently open Monday to Thursday from 8.30am to 5.00pm and Friday from 8.30am to 12pm, except bank holidays. Calls are charged at local or national rates.
You may also write to:
Parliamentary and Health Service
Citygate
Mosley Street
Manchester
M2 3HQ
Website: www.ombudsman.org.uk
Email: phso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk