Memorandum from the Local Government Association
INTRODUCTION
1. The Local Government Association (LGA)
welcomes the invitation to submit written evidence to this Inquiry.
The LGA represents the interests of all local authorities in England
(and Wales) which have waste collection and waste disposal responsibilities.
It therefore has a direct interest in the issues pertinent to
this Inquiry.
INITIAL COMMENTS
2. On the face of it, the timing of this
Inquiry and that of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
("The Future of Waste Management") appears slightly
unusual. Both investigations—essentially into "what
needs to be done in the waste arena"—were agreed in
August 2002, not long before the in-depth Strategy Unit investigation
into the Waste Strategy 2000 was (at that time) due to report.
In the circumstances, a single Inquiry (reviewing the Waste Strategy
and looking to future actions, timed to complement the findings
of the Strategy Unit) might have been more helpful. It is to be
hoped that the speed at which proposals to change the direction
of the Waste Strategy are implemented will not be affected adversely
by the need (on the part of government) to consider and respond
to the two Inquiries.
IMPLEMENTATION OF
WASTE STRATEGY
2000
3. There can be little doubt that inadequate
progress has been made in England towards achieving sustainable
waste management. Indeed, this was the premise on which the Waste
Summit (November 2001) and its decision to launch a major review
of Waste Strategy 2000 so soon after the strategy was issued,
was based. In this context, the country has so far very largely
failed to reap the social, economic and environmental benefits
to be derived from the successful delivery of a coherent sustainable
waste management strategy.
4. Whilst Waste Strategy 2000 certainly
recognised the need for change, and described steps needed to
achieve such change, it essentially failed to provide the strategic
plan and direction necessary to implement this in practice.
5. The country is, therefore, lagging considerably
behind many of its European counterparts, which are well-advanced
in implementing sustainable waste management strategies; it has
yet to translate into practice the sort of sustainable waste management
approach which Waste Strategy 2000 recognised the need for.
6. The failure to deliver a coherent sustainable
waste management strategy to date is, at the most fundamental
level, a reflection of the imbalance between economic and environmental
considerations—the former having predominance—which
successive governments have so far failed to address.
7. Commitment within government has been
lacking to the degree necessary to turn the agenda identified
by DEFRA (and its forbears) and championed by Environment Ministers,
into the reality of more sustainable waste management practices
delivered on the ground. For example, to change the way as a society
we deal with our "rubbish", a radical change of perception
is required—for which robust leadership from central government
is required.
RESOURCES AND
PERFORMANCE AGAINST
TARGETS
8. As far as local authorities are concerned,
this question of commitment has been, and continues to be, most
critical where the provision of funding is concerned. In short,
insufficient resources have been provided to allow meaningful
progress to be made towards what the Waste Strategy 2000 readily
admits are "challenging" municipal targets for recycling/composting
and energy recovery.
9. The LGA has argued consistently in its
submissions to recent Spending Reviews that the government has
under-estimated local authority costs in dealing with municipal
waste. Key considerations are the continuing upward trend in waste
management and disposal costs above the rate of inflation and,
critically, the increasing (around 3%) growth in municipal waste
volumes. The introduction of the Landfill Tax (for local authorities,
payable on waste volumes generated by the public) and its escalator
mechanism has, in effect, siphoned money out of the system which
otherwise could be devoted to local sustainable waste management.
The failure to date to allow local authorities to participate
directly in the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme (LTCS) has ensured
that this route to much-needed financial support has been substantially
inaccessible.
10. It is worth pointing out that in recent
Spending Review settlements, where the overall size of the EPCS
block (within which waste management comes) has increased, the
misleading impression has sometimes been given by government that
a lion's share of this block has in some way been "allocated"
to waste management. In reality, the EPCS block covers a very
wide range of local authority services (everything from flood
prevention to libraries, trading standards to the planning service,
as well as waste management) and the Standard Spending Assessment
(SSA) process (which it forms part of) is predicated clearly on
the basis of individual local authorities having responsibility
for allocations according to local need, across services within
each spending block.
BEST VALUE
11. In terms of Best Value and the targets
which local authorities are required to achieve under this regime,
anomalies exist which serve to undermine its integrity as a consistent
approach. Some of these are connected with the use of evaluations
based on weight, the removal of some allowable elements (eg household
rubble), not taking realistic account of growth in municipal waste,
and the non-allowance of home composting in recycling rates. A
review of the Best Value waste framework is therefore considered
overdue, and the recommendation in the Strategy Unit report to
consider the development of alternative Best Value indicators
is therefore welcomed. It will, of course, be important to involve
local authorities (and CIPFA) fully in this process.
DATA COLLECTION
AND MONITORING
12. The LGA notes the comment in the EFRA
Committee's "Delivering Sustainable Waste Management"
report (5th report of session 2000-01): ". . . the data available
on waste arisings . . . is incomplete, unreliable and often published
too late to be of use. This situation has hindered the development
of both national and local waste strategies". In this context,
the recommendation in the Strategy Unit report for the Environment
Agency and DEFRA to draw up a data and research strategy for the
next three years is supported strongly. Hopefully, this should
provide the good quality data which is vital to underpin the delivery
of a successful national waste strategy. Again, involvement of
local authorities is needed in this process.
ECONOMIC AND
REGULATORY INSTRUMENTS
TO INFLUENCE
WASTE PRODUCTION
AND MANAGEMENT,
AND PRODUCER
RESPONSIBILITY INITIATIVES
13. The lesson of experience so far is that
greater use of appropriate mechanisms is likely to be needed to
achieve the primary goals of a realistic sustainable waste strategy—to
reduce the growth in waste volumes, whilst dealing in a more sustainable
manner with waste that continues to arise. The true costs of disposing
of waste should be factored into the prices of products and services.
14. The LGA supports strongly the principle
of producer responsibility, and notes the limitations of a voluntary
approach to developing what should function as a powerful mechanism
in achieving a transformation to more sustainable waste management
practices. The approach adopted to date appears to be weighted
more in favour of producer interests. A recent illustration of
this is the decision, following strong lobbying from the motor
industry, to make last owners of motor vehicles responsible for
disposal costs up to 2007, rather than bring this timeframe forward,
as was possible.
COMMUNITY SECTOR
15. The LGA recognises the important part
which the community sector has to play in helping to develop successful
local sustainable waste management practices. High participation
rates in kerb-side collections have been achieved where collections
have been organised by bodies such as Friends of the Earth, in
co-operation with the relevant local authorities. The LGA recently
(December 2002) signed a formal national Memorandum of Understanding
with the Community Recycling Network (CRN) in recognition of the
two organisations' mutual interests in achieving maximum waste
reduction through collection of materials for re-use and recycling.
PUBLIC SECTOR
AS AN
EXEMPLAR OF
GOOD WASTE
MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
(INCLUDING PROCUREMENT)
16. It is recognised that the role of the
public sector in adopting good waste management practices in this
field is not generally a very positive one. The LGA notes that
the EFRA Committee's fifth report of session 2000-01 ("Delivering
Sustainable Waste Management") referred to the government's
plans for "green" procurement practices as being "inadequate"
and urged the government to press ahead with a more ambitious
and rapid programme of greening its procurement practices. In
this context, the recommendations in the Strategy Unit report
in relation to government departments are to be welcomed.
17. Specifically, in relation to local authorities,
more could be done by authorities to adopt green procurement.
Greater encouragement and support from government (ODPM) for local
authorities to adopt voluntary green procurement targets, as is
recommended by the Strategy Unit report, therefore seems sensible.
The Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) for local government
is currently developing proposals in this area intended to support
improved municipal performance.
January 2003
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