The fourth directorate is a single Operations "delivery" unit, responsible for national services, and line management of all the regional and area staff.

Approximately half the agency's expenditure is on flood risk management, and a third is spent on environment protection (pollution control).

It had responsibility for the whole of England and Wales but with specifically designated border arrangements with Scotland covering the catchment of the River Tweed.

The resulting internal document proposed additional standards for the handling of materials that offer environmental advantages but may be considered more susceptible to ignition.

These functions in relation to other rivers (defined as ordinary watercourses) in England are undertaken by local authorities or internal drainage boards.

The Environment Agency is responsible for operating, maintaining and replacing an estimated £20 billion worth of flood risk management (FRM) installations.

The Thames Barrier was completed long before the EA was created but more recent examples of major defences against coastal flooding include the Medmerry managed realignment scheme in West Sussex in 2013.

It does this through the issue of formal consents to discharge or, in the case of large, complex or potentially damaging industries by means of a permit.

The agency works with local authorities, National Highways and others to implement the UK government's air quality strategy in England as mandated in the Environment Act 1995.

The agency is the regulatory authority for all waste management activities including the licensing of sites such as landfill, incineration and recycling facilities.

The agency issues environmental permits to waste management sites and any individuals or companies found to have caused pollution or have infringed their licence conditions can be prosecuted.

The EA's funding principles mean that income from the sale of fishing licences is entirely ringfenced re-invested back into fisheries work.

The Agency's lock-keepers maintain and operate systems of sluices, weirs and locks to manage water-levels for navigation, and where necessary to control flooding.

[30] The EA operates a variety of equipment and machinery along with a transport fleet in order to carry out the specialised duties of its officers, namely in survey, incident response and monitoring.

In the light of criticism, the Agency commissioned a report from a review team under the Chairmanship of Peter Bye, a former chief executive of Suffolk CC.

The resulting report entitled Learning to Live with Rivers specifically criticised a reluctance to use computer models and inadequate representation of the dynamic effects of land use, catchment processes and climatic variability.

More broadly, the report noted that sustainable flood risk management could only be achieved by working with the natural response of the river basin and by providing the necessary storage, flow reduction and discharge capacity.

On 15 June 2007 the National Audit Office produced a report on the performance of the Environment Agency with respect to its administrative targets and information systems.

The report highlighted that the Environment Agency had not reached its targets for maintaintaining flood defence systems and producing catchment area plans, and that since 2001 the general conditions of assets had not improved significantly.

[41] Issuing a strong response, the chief executive rejected the charge that the Environment Agency has massively failed, as alleged in the commons public accounts committee, noting that in the last seven years, defences had been created to protect 100,000 homes in floodplains, numbers receiving flood warning had dramatically increased and greatly improved flood mapping and forecasting had been implemented.

An opposition spokesperson raised a question over the timing of the release of the information—"just as MPs left for their 11-week summer recess—guaranteeing minimum parliamentary scrutiny".

[46] Pitt's review, published in full in June 2008 contained 92 recommendations looking at all aspects of the "biggest civil emergency in British history".

It recommended the Environment Agency should further develop its modelling tools and techniques working with its partners on such (4)(5), and also make flood visualisation data more accessible (36)(37).

[citation needed] The review also argued that the government's £800 million-a-year flood defence budget for 2010 to 2011 was "about right" but stated that money should be spent more wisely.

[51] On leaving her post as CEO in June 2008 Barbara Young responded to these suggestions, predicting that the Pitt report was unlikely to recommend the break-up of the Environment Agency.

This wasn't a decision taken lightly however, there was a strong chance the barrier could have broken down while closed leading to a much greater risk of flooding.

[54] In the days following the floods, it was reported that Agency staff responsible for protecting the UK from flooding were paid almost £300,000 in bonuses or received large payoffs in 2015,[55] including the Environment Agency's publicity chief who led the press team who tried to cover-up their chairman's absence; Pam Gilder quit with a £112,000 pay-off.

[citation needed] The extent of damage caused in such a short period across wide areas has brought into focus the overall performance of UK central government flood defence strategies.

Professor Dieter Helm, Chair of the UK government's Natural Capital Committee stated in January 2016: "Flooding crises tend to follow an established pattern.

The conventional approach to flood defence, carried out by the Environment Agency (EA), and financed largely by the Treasury, is at best inefficient.