Part 1: Environmental Governance Chapter 2: The Office for Environmental Protection Section 32: Complaints
This section provides that a person may make complaints to the OEP regarding alleged contraventions of environmental law by public authorities. It sets out who may make such complaints, what form they must take, and the time limits within which they should be made. The contraventions and public authorities about which complaints may be considered by the OEP are set out in section 31, while "environmental law" is defined in section 46. Figure 1 illustrates the process by which the OEP’s management of complaints is expected to operate, as set out in this section and in section 33 (investigations).
	Subsection (1) allows for any legal or natural person to make a complaint to the OEP if they believe that a public authority has failed to comply with environmental law, subject to the exclusions set out in subsection (4).
	Subsection (2) sets out that the OEP must prepare and publish a document that sets out the procedure by which complaints can be made, and subsection (3) provides that complaints must be submitted in accordance with the most recently published version of that procedure. This is to allow the OEP to specify the means by which it will accept complaints. The OEP may or may not allow, for example, complaints in writing, by telephone or through an online complaints portal. Complaints that are not submitted in accordance with the procedure do not have to be considered by the OEP.
	Under subsection (4), public authorities themselves are excluded from complaining to the OEP, as this would amount to one arm of the government or the public sector complaining about another.
	Subsection (5) requires that the complainant must have exhausted all internal complaints procedures of the allegedly offending body before they submit the complaint to the OEP. A wide range of bodies including the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Planning Inspectorate, for instance, operate complaints procedures that will apply to their functions, which are concerned with the implementation of environmental law. This provision is intended to give the public authority in question the opportunity to consider and seek to resolve the matter through its own procedures before it is considered by the OEP.
	Subsection (6) makes provision regarding the timing of making a complaint to the OEP. The complaint must be submitted no later than one year after the last occurrence of the alleged breach of environmental law (paragraph (a)), or three months after the conclusion of any internal complaints procedures (paragraph (b)), whichever is later. This is intended to encourage complainants to bring their complaints in a timely manner, whilst also allowing a reasonable time period for people to bring complaints. An open-ended ability to complain long after the event in question could lead to uncertainty over certain decisions, particularly given that it could lead to enforcement action.
	The provision in subsection (7) means that the OEP will not be entirely precluded from investigating serious matters on the basis of a complaint being late. Subsection (7) allows the OEP to waive the time limit in subsection (6) if there are exceptional reasons for doing so. This judgement will be a matter for the OEP’s discretion, and as such it could cover a number of circumstances, although it can be used only where there is an exceptional reason to disapply the normal time limit. It is possible that the OEP may wish to use this provision in a case where, for example, environmental harm resulting from a failure to comply with the law has taken some time to materialise and therefore for that failure to be identified, or where details of a decision only came to light long after it was taken.
	The time limits specified in subsection (6) set out the periods after which complaints will not normally be accepted by the OEP, but do not affect its wider ability to investigate or take enforcement action (which may be prompted by triggers other than a complaint) under subsequent sections.
	It should be noted that no provision is made to grant the OEP the power to impose charges in relation to its receipt and handling of complaints. As such, the complaints system will be free of charge to all complainants.
	A summary of the procedure for handling complaints is provided in figure 1.