At a Defra Business Readiness Forum today, the EA announced a Regulatory Position Statement (RPS 288) that states that enforcement action will not be taken on producers that have not registered and supplied their data by the current deadline of 1 October. Instead, a new deadline has been set for both the first and second half 2023 data of 31 May 2024 after which, they will start to apply enforcement.
This has come as a complete surprise to everybody and been met with some considerable frustration by companies that have put in a lot of effort and cost to get their first half data ready for submission by 1 October. No reason has been given for the position, but it is assumed that someone in Defra has finally realised the complexity and confusion these requirements are causing.