Select Committee on Public Accounts Twenty-Fifth Report


1. The respective roles of the Agency and the Department

1. The Agency regulates waste within a framework established by the Department. This framework sets out the responsibilities of producers and handlers of waste, and requires more significant waste sites and activities, such as landfill sites, to be licensed. Smaller sites and other waste activities are exempt from licensing. They must be registered with the Agency, but this provides much less control than a licence.[2]

2. Since its formation in 1996, the Agency has faced a growing range of responsibilities from new environmental legislation. This process is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, putting increased pressure on the Agency's resources. Next year, for example, the Agency will become responsible for regulating some 180,000 farms, a task which it estimates will require between 900 and 1,300 staff at an additional cost of some £30 million a year.[3]

3. The Agency employs 10,500 staff and spends £760 million a year across its environmental responsibilities, but nevertheless is subject to detailed guidance from the Department on waste matters, for example on the targeting of the Agency's inspections of waste operators. On whether such a level of oversight was necessary, both the Agency and the industry believed that the Department had an important role in, for example, negotiating and interpreting European policy, maintaining relations with Parliament through Ministers and in overseeing the Agency's operations and performance. However, the Department's involvement with detailed guidance on operational matters or in drafting regulations in areas where the Agency had greater expertise was less necessary, although the Department's final approval was relevant.[4]

4. The Agency has provided more consistent and professional regulation, and secured better standards of waste management by waste operators, since its set up. However, waste sites and activities vary greatly in their complexity and the hazard they pose to the public and the environment, for example from bottle banks to large landfills handling millions of tonnes of waste, including toxic waste. The existing framework and guidance provides some flexibility for the Agency to respond to the level of risk by allowing a range of exemptions from the licensing regime. However, a large number of sites which currently require a full licence do not justify the same level of regulation as, for example, sites handling hazardous waste. Many recovery and recycling activities pose a low risk to people and the environment, and these sites could be regulated effectively through a standard and simple permit rather than a bespoke licence. At the same time, there is also considerable evidence that some exempt activities pose significant risks to the environment, and of abuse of exemptions by unscrupulous operators.[5]

5. The Department has been reviewing the current list of exempt activities since 1998. It regretted that the review had taken so long, and intended to issue a consultation paper on exemptions shortly. The Department and the Agency had also agreed on the need for a more fundamental review of waste licensing, and the Department planned to review its guidance to the Agency on waste management licensing.[6]

6. The Agency lacks reliable data on fly-tipping because most incidents are the responsibility of local authorities. Nevertheless, the Agency considered that fly-tipping had increased since 1996. The Agency also predicted that incidents involving toxic wastes were likely to increase further because of new restrictions on the combined disposal of hazardous and non hazardous waste, and the requirement for the treatment of all waste prior to disposal. These restrictions would limit the number of disposal sites handling hazardous waste and substantially increase the costs of legitimate disposal. In some cases the Agency believed that hazardous waste would cost £1,000 a tonne, or more, to treat and dispose of legally. Following the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit report on waste, the Agency had put forward proposals to increase its activity on fly tipping.[7]


2   C&AG's Report, para 4 Back

3   Qq 37, 101-104 Back

4   Q 13; Ev 1 Back

5   C&AG's Report, para 7, 3.30; Qq 14, 69, 74, 97-98, 101, 163 Back

6   C&AG's Report, para 22; Qq 11, 80, 138-143 Back

7   Ev 20; Qq 36, 66, 68, 86-87, 147-150 Back


 
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