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Czech Environmental Inspectorate and its role according to the act of prevention of serious accident
DOBISOVÁ, Simona
The Czech Environmental Inspectorate (CEI, Inspectorate), a body established by the Ministry of the Environment and led by a director, is divided into directorates, ten regional inspectorates and two branches. The objective of this thesis is to provide an overview of the activity carried out by the CEI according to Act No. 59/2006 Coll., about Prevention of Serious Incidents, as amended (hereafter Act). The CEI has been conducting this activity in cooperation with district offices and integrated inspectorates. Among the main activities of the CEI, according to the aforementioned Act, belong processing and discussing the proposal of a year?s inspection plan, organising inspections, creating the final inspection report, inspecting compliance with provisions of the Act by the operator and in case of identifying failures in fulfilling these obligations, prescribing corrective measures or a penalty. The selected methodology assessed the current status through available materials, in particular valid legislation, annual reports, internal regulations of the CEI and Ministry of the Environment. The practical part is based on the theoretic findings and a survey among the CEI experts engaged in this area. The survey was divided into two individual parts. The first part focuses on finding out expert opinions. The other part is made of a test of experts? knowledge. The area of valid legislation focused on its complexity, division of competencies between integrated inspectorates, the frequency of inspections and levels of penalties. Based on the available results there is satisfaction with complexity of legislation; however, it was pointed out that there is occasional duplicity of competencies of individual integrated inspectorates. The frequency of inspections and the levels of penalties stipulated by law were viewed very positively. Another examined area was cooperation with other integrated inspectorates and district offices during joined-up inspections. The area was assessed by all approached CEI experts as absolutely without any issues. Another assessed item was cooperation with the appeal body, i.e. Ministry of the Environment. In this area there is discontentment for the reason of the appeal body cancelling or reducing penalties. Cancelling penalties occurs for the reason of process errors when conduction inspections or disunity in interpreting the valid legislation. The area of personnel support was assessed as sufficient with a note that with respect to the drop in the number of employees as part of cost efficiencies, there would be a lack of employees. In case of inspectors working under the Department of Water Protection, there were two solutions defined: either leaving the existing status or including this area under the Department of Waste Management where integrated prevention also sits at the moment. The last reviewed area is training of new inspectors and developing the current ones. The area of training new inspectors was assessed as insufficient, in particular its practical part. Therefore, the only possible solution is to amend the methodical instruction to train new employees and include more practical preparation. Another point was developing the current insp ectors. Furthermore, it was suggested to introduce regular re-examining of inspectors, approximately once in two years and always when legislation changes. The last examined area was to assess the knowledge level of experts of prevention of serious incidents. The test contained 15 questions and only ten experts participated in it. The average score of errors was one error per one expert. This result can be perceived as very good and it can be said that knowledge is on a very good level. In conclusion, it is necessary to add that the CEI operates in the examined area as a body of prevention and therefore its activity in this area plays a vital role in the fight to prevent serious incidents from occurring.
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