Examination of witnesses (Questions 120
- 139)
TUESDAY 30 NOVEMBER 1999
DR MARION
CARTER, MR
DIRK HAZELL
and MR GRAHAM
WATSON
120. Who should be assessing whether OPRA is
effective? Should it be you as a trade organisation or should
it be the public in some form?
(Mr Watson) I think both bodies have a part to play.
The public is a key feedback source into the Agency and certainly
a lot of our experience as a company is that the Agency reacts
very quickly to public complaints and public notification and
that is fine. In terms of whether OPRA is actually achieving anything,
then we have to look at (a) the number of convictions that are
resulting from inspection, (b) the effectiveness of the enforcement
when inspectors are actually on site, and (c) whether the training
of the inspectors allows them to look at important factors and
salient factors while they are actually there. There is no point
in an inspector going to a site, ticking off that he has been
there and going somewhere else without actually being effective
while he is on the premises.
Christine Butler
121. You have just mentioned that you are rather
unhappy about the decision to split licensing from enforcement.
Could you say why? The Agency themselves want to be seen to be
an agent of change.
(Dr Carter) Change is to be applauded when it has
a beneficial effect. Change for change's sake is not a good thing
and splitting licensing from enforcement has been very detrimental
because the two are very much related. It further dilutes the
competence within the Agency because you are duplicating the need
for that competence. The enforcement officers must understand
the purpose of the conditions on the licence. When the licences
were written by the person who enforceed it they had understood
why the condition was there, they understood the environmental
impact of the facility and they understood the relevance of the
condition. It is extremely important that that understanding is
held by the enforcement officer, otherwise we get, as Mr Watson
has said, the tick box approach of just looking at the words of
the licence without understanding the purpose of the licence conditions.
122. Or a black hole of confusion generally.
Were people crying out and saying this was the wrong way to go
before it happened? Did anyone try to reverse this decision?
(Dr Carter) Yes.
123. Did ESA?
(Dr Carter) Many years ago, before the Agency came
into being, NAWDC, as it then was before it changed its name to
ESA, made recommendations that there should not be functional
division at the working face, as it were, at the site level. We
stressed the importance that people have a good understanding
of the facilities. Waste management facilities are complex technically.
Their impact on the environment changes with every site because
it is a function of the natural characteristics of the location
of the site. It is not something on which you can have a series
of rules. Every site has to be viewed as a single entity. We stressed
at the time that it was extremely important that it was dealt
with in an holistic way, that this environmental impact had to
be looked at right from the design of the facility through to
the conditions that were put on the licence, to the enforcement
of the licence.
124. Do you think anyone listened?
(Dr Carter) It would appear not from the fact that
it has been split.
125. So no-one listened at all. What is your
view of the hall of shame initiative?
(Mr Hazell) Our view is that it has been a wholly
counter-productive exercise.
126. Do you think it has been crass?
(Mr Hazell) I think crass is a word I would be prepared
to use. I would raise three points about it. First of all, it
is not neutral. The regulator ought to be neutral. There is an
alleged hall of fame. The first we as an industry knew about it
was when we read about it in the evidence the Agency themselves
have submitted. It certainly did not have the profile on the Web
site of the hall of shame.
Mrs Dunwoody
127. You would rather have people hung, drawn
and quartered in public.
(Mr Hazell) The hall of shame we note at the moment,
at least during this inquiry, has been withdrawn from the Web
site, but there is no guarantee that it will not come back. There
is a problem in another sense. On the lack of neutrality the hall
of shame also prejudices against larger companies simply because
they have a larger volume of activity. So, other things being
equal, there is a greater likelihood that a large company is going
to be featured in the hall of shame and that of itself is not
entirely appropriate. The hall of shame sends an inappropriate
signal for this industry. The British waste management industry
is one of the best in the world, it is half a per cent of GDP
and it has the capacity over the medium to long term to be a reasonably
significant exporter and we have been co-operating with the Department
of Trade and Industry to try and get the industry into that sort
of position. The hall of shame certainly does not help convey
that impression.
128. Forgive me, but if somebody is not doing
the job properly and those who are meant to be regulating them
make that public, why is that unacceptable?
(Mr Hazell) I was just going to come to that. I can
deal with that in two ways. First of all, if one goes back to
neutrality. If an independent regulator wishes to publicise what
they consider to be bad practice in a particular way then at least
equal prominence should be given to good practice. We have, for
example, suggested to the Environment Agency that they might wish—and
this was at the time when the hall of shame was on the Web site—to
give at least equal priority to the potential ability in this
country to recycle fluorescent light bulbs, which is something
that our members are willing to do and it is quite important because
of the mercury that is contained in it. That is one aspect.
Chairman
129. That is totally different, is it not? The
hall of shame is based on court fines, so that is clear and objective,
companies have broken the law and they have been fined. You may
say that the fines are not equally distributed. Good news about
fluorescent light bulbs is much more subjective, is it not?
(Mr Hazell) I think that recycling heavy metals is
an objective rather than a subjective matter. There is no clear
linkage between prosecutions and protection of the environment.
Christine Butler
130. Are you saying that it is based on false
premises and that court fines have nothing to do with an accurate
reflection of an industry's performance?
(Mr Hazell) I would not put it in quite those terms,
but I think it is true to say that the prosecutions do not reflect
the industry's—
131. What about the unlicensed industries?
(Mr Hazell) I would be very grateful if I could just
finish the point. For a regulator to measure its success by prosecutions
is itself, I think, a mark of failure. It tends not to be what
one sees, for example, with the Financial Services Authority or
a more mature regulator.
Chairman
132. We do not want to go into that, but I do
not think you have done very well with that one.
(Mr Hazell) It can be construed as being conduct more
like a pressure group than that of a regulator. A really successful
regulator is not going to perceive the need for there to be a
prosecution.
Christine Butler
133. How do you think the matter should be improved
if we are to be open and accountable and people would like to
know what it is doing and how industry is performing? How would
you suggest it goes about that?
(Mr Hazell) I think one of the things that we are
looking for is a fairer and more effective approach.
134. Which would be?
(Mr Hazell) One very simple example would be, for
example, if they are going to have things like the hall of shame
on the Web site, equal prominence given to good environmental
initiatives.
135. What about links with the baddies?
(Mr Hazell) And links to ESA's Web site as well as
the pressure groups' site.
136. You do not have a hall of shame, do you?
(Mr Hazell) No, we do not have a hall of shame, but
we have an important message. It is very important for the public
to understand that the waste management industry is the cure and
not the cause of waste problems in this country.
137. So you do not really want the Environment
Agency to be critical and to publish a list of the worst performers
at all.
(Dr Carter) One of the problems is, as Dirk has said,
that the fines are not relateed to actual impact on the environment
and if there was some measure of the damage to the environment
and some scientific basis to the hall of shame I think as an industry
we would be happier with that.
Mrs Dunwoody
138. So you are not objecting to the idea of
publicity, you just think it should be expanded so it is clear
how you have damaged the environment, is that it?
(Mr Hazell) What I said was that many of the fines
are not related to damage to the environment—fines are not
a measure of damage and so, in many instances there is no damage.
Many of the prosecutions are for problems with conditions of licences
which do not always affect the environment. For instance, a site
can be prosecuted because its noticeboard is not entirely visible
from all directions. There was an example of this recently. I
do not think anybody would seriously suggest that that has impacted
on the environment. Nevertheless, it results in a prosecution.
139. How many incidents of that kind have been
publicised on this hall of shame as opposed to prosecutions for
incidents which impact on the environment?
(Mr Hazell) It is not separated out.
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