Part 1: Environmental Governance Chapter 2: The Office for Environmental Protection Section 27: Co-operation duties of public authorities and the OEP
This section establishes a duty on public authorities to co-operate with the OEP, and provide the OEP such reasonable assistance as it requests, in connection with the exercise of its statutory functions. This includes the provision of information in relation to investigations under section 33, information notices under section 35 and decision notices under section 36, as well as activities that form its scrutiny and advice functions under sections 28 to 30. The intention of the duty to co-operate is to help the OEP and public authorities resolve issues constructively, and to share relevant information. It applies only to reasonable requests and would not replace the need for the OEP to commission work from public authorities, for which a fee might be payable: for example, if the OEP commissioned the Environment Agency (EA) to analyse data and that analysis was outside the EA’s planned work programme.
	The obligation under subsection (1) is for any person whose functions include functions of a public nature to co-operate with the OEP, and to give the OEP such reasonable assistance (including the provision of information) as the OEP requests. This reflects the definition of a "public authority" in section 31(3).
	Subsection (2) sets out the persons to whom, and circumstances where, the duty to co-operate does not apply. The duty excludes courts and tribunals, Parliament, devolved legislatures, Scottish and Welsh Ministers and Northern Ireland departments, persons exercising parliamentary functions, and persons who exercise only devolved functions. The duty does not apply to any person whose functions are wholly devolved; however, if only some of their functions are devolved, they need only comply with the duty in relation to their non-devolved functions, as set out in subsection (3).
	Subsection (4) provides that the OEP should consult a devolved environmental governance body if the work it is undertaking would be of relevance to such a body. This could include the OEP consulting the relevant body during an investigation if it became aware of a transboundary environmental issue that may have involved a breach of devolved legislation outside of the OEP’s own remit, but would be within the remit of the devolved environmental governance body. "Devolved environmental governance body" is defined in section 47.