Schedule 3: The Office for Environmental Protection: Northern Ireland Part 1: The OEP’s Northern Ireland functions Complaints about relevant public authorities
Paragraph 6 allows complaints to be made to the OEP regarding alleged contraventions of relevant environmental law by relevant 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. Complaints that are not submitted in accordance with the procedures set out in this paragraph do not have to be considered by the OEP (see paragraph 8(2)(a)). The contraventions and relevant public authorities about which complaints may be considered by the OEP are set out in paragraphs 4 and 5 respectively. Paragraph 5 also defines relevant environmental law.
	Sub-paragraph (1) allows for any legal or natural person – other than a person described in sub-paragraph (4) – to make a complaint to the OEP if they believe that a relevant public authority has failed to comply with relevant environmental law.
	Sub-paragraph (2) requires the OEP to draw up and publish a complaints procedure and sub-paragraph (3) requires all complaints to the OEP to be submitted in accordance with the most recently published version of that procedure.
	Sub-paragraph (4) does not permit public authorities to make complaints to the OEP. This is to prevent one arm of the government or the public sector complaining about another.
	Sub-paragraph (5) requires a complainant to have exhausted any internal complaints procedures of the body it wishes to complain about before submitting a complaint to the OEP. This should allow matters to be resolved without formal action being taken where possible.
	Sub-paragraph (6) requires a complaint to be submitted to the OEP within a year of the alleged breach of relevant environmental law (sub-paragraph (6)(a)), or within three months of the conclusion of any internal complaints procedures (sub-paragraph (6)(b)), whichever is later. However, sub-paragraph (7) allows the OEP to consider complaints submitted after the expiration of these time limits if it believes that there are exceptional grounds for doing so – for example, if the full impact of environmental harm allegedly caused by a relevant public authority has not become apparent for some time.