Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 64-79)

DR ANDREW SKINNER, MR MARTIN BROCKLEHURST AND MR ARWYN JONES

25 MARCH 2004

  Q64 Chairman: Good morning. My apologies for the delay in starting this session. Thank you for coming. Thank you also for your memorandum and particular thanks to Mr Brocklehurst who I understand has come at very short notice indeed. Your memorandum focuses very heavily on fly-tipping and you will not be surprised that that is the issue we really want to major on with you this morning. I notice that your memorandum says that the illegal dumping of waste accounted in 2002 for 14% of the serious pollution incidents which you have dealt with. Could you give us some idea of whether that proportion is greater or lesser than in previous years—that is, what the trend is.

  Dr Skinner: Yes, certainly, Chairman. Thank you for the invitation to come here. Before I answer the question specifically, could I just make a comment: I think we will probably use the word "fly-tipping" quite a lot in this discussion and one of the concerns we have put into the paper is that it does tend to under-describe the nature of the issue, both its acceptability under the law and also its scale, so I am pleased that you have used the word "illegal dumping" because in fact that is what we are really talking about, particularly as you are talking to the Agency, and under our agreement with local authorities that is the kind of "high end of the market" that we deal with. So, yes, it is an important factor in the interests we deal with, and it is on the increase. As a proportion of serious incidents across the whole spectrum, it is not such a dramatic increase over previous years but Martin Brocklehurst will give you more detail on the figures.

  Mr Brocklehurst: If we look at the numbers we have, which is incidents reported to the Environment Agency: 2001-02 was a 19% increase overall for all incidents and 2002-03 was a further 5% increase for all incidents. Then if we look at the proportion of incidents involving hazardous waste, for 2002 it was 14% and for 2003 it remained roughly at 14%; however, the number of category 1 and category 2 incidents (the more serious hazardous waste incidents) between 2001 and 2002 doubled. We are still working through the data for 2003 to calculate the category 1 and 2 incidents for that year as well. The indications that we have is that overall the number of hazardous waste incidents—if we take all the categories of incidents—have remained roughly around the 14% number but the percentage of those that were serious is increasing.

  Q65 Chairman: Presumably with the new arrangements of the ending of co-disposal, you anticipate that that problem may be about to take a leap for the worse.

  Mr Brocklehurst: Clearly, as we are working with Defra on the consequences of the end of co-disposal, there is a concern that we have that that problem could deteriorate in the next few months. We are clearly working to try to prevent that occurring, with proposals in place to monitor and work with the producers in particular of the more difficult hazardous waste streams. They roughly break down to 20% coming from oil and oil related products, 20% coming from construction and demolition materials, and about another 7% and 14% respectively for inorganics and organics. With the inorganics and the organics, which mainly come from the chemical industry, the industry is well geared up to deal with the consequences of the change. We would not expect to see major problems in that area. For oils and oily sludges, most of that material is currently burnt, so this year we would not expect to see major problems for that area. That leaves construction and demolition waste as the prime target, where 92% of the material of hazardous construction waste is currently landfilled. That is the area on which we are concentrating because that is the most difficult area as we move into this change in the way hazardous waste is managed.

  Q66 Chairman: You say you have a string of proposals in place. Those are proposals to Defra, are they?

  Mr Brocklehurst: No, these are active proposals to work with the industry to ensure that all the key players are aware of the change and are putting plans in place to be able to manage the transition.

  Q67 Chairman: And the industry is responding positively to this?

  Mr Brocklehurst: We are working closely with them at this stage, yes.

  Q68 Chairman: Are there budgetary implications for you?

  Dr Skinner: There are budget implications in two respects. One is the regulatory duties that fall upon us with the changes of the regime, but these are ones which are covered because that is a regulatory activity which has an income stream financed through the charges that people pay. The concern is that the activity we are talking about this morning is not funded by that same route; it comes through our grant-in-aid funding which you will know very well is under very heavy pressure. It does not only apply to the hazardous waste, it applies to a number of policy areas in waste, where, rightly and with our strong support, the regulatory processes are being tightened and sending cost pressures into industry. We expect that these will lead to an increase in illegal activity. That is where there is a funding gap, between what we expect us and local authorities to be called upon to do and also doing it, because it is not funded in the same way as the legitimate activity is.

  Q69 Chairman: Could you give us an idea of the scale of the funding?

  Dr Skinner: We told your Committee last year about the proposals we had put forward to Defra for the kind of scale increase in activity that we thought was commensurate with the threat. We mentioned a start-up cost of £14 million and an annual running cost of £6 million. You were kind enough in your report to support that scale of activity, and, indeed, the Government in their response also acknowledged that that was an appropriate issue for consideration. Those are the figures. They still remain in play as we go into Spending Review 2004. That is a matter of ongoing debate with government.

  Q70 Chairman: Going back to the incidents figures, you have referred already to the 19% increase we saw to 2002 in the overall incidents, but what struck me was that Thames, for example, saw a 73% increase in illegal dumping. Why is it particularly bad in Thames? Or are there other areas where you are seeing similar increases?

  Dr Skinner: We have given you what we call our "hot spots map". This is based on 2002 data, and we will be processing 2003 almost as we speak. This very  graphically demonstrates the nature and geographical spread of the issues and just shows how the issue is dominant in Thames. Indeed, the Environment Agency Board discussed this issue yesterday and one of our board members described the London area as the "armpit of the country" as far as fly-tipping is concerned. It is a huge issue. It is partly because of the scale of the industrial activity and construction activity in the South East; it is partly a factor depending on the availability of resources to deal with it legitimately and, it seems, because we identify an increase in activity of what I call "organised crime" in this area which seems to be particularly active in the metropolis.

  Q71 Chairman: So there are not other areas with a scale of increase as bad as London.

  Dr Skinner: No, there are no other areas which have figures which are that graphic, although there is more intense activity in most urban areas, as the map shows.

  Q72 Chairman: When might you finish your work on the 2003 figures and be able to present a comprehensive picture for that year?

  Mr Brocklehurst: Obviously we started doing work on the 2003 figures as soon as the year ended. We are very close now to finalising all the numbers from the 2003 data, so I would expect that within a month we will be able to submit the final figures for 2003, fully verified, making sure we have all the cases that have been investigated entered onto the system.

  Q73 Chairman: It would be very helpful if you could—

  Dr Skinner: We will try to expedite that for you. Would you allow me to make a comment about data? Although we are quoting these figures and we believe them to be the best available, I think it is widely known that the data and information around this issue is quite poor—and of course we do commission at the end of this month the Flycapture system which is going to do a number of really important things—but I would hope that in future discussions on this issue in future years we will have much better data and more certain data so that policy can be much better informed than in current years.

  Q74 Chairman: Could we talk about Flycapture. It is encouraging to hear that it is on course for a launch on 1 April. What actually do you expect it to add to what you are doing at the moment?

  Mr Brocklehurst: Flycapture contains essentially four areas of information: summary statistics; registration of vehicles used (which is something that local authorities were very keen to get on the system, so that if the same vehicle is being used across different boroughs for the same activity we will pick up the pattern); enforcement action taken; and costs to the local authorities and ourselves in dealing with the incidents. If you break that down and then you look at what the summary statistics will tell us, it will tell us the type of waste that is deposited, the type of land on which it is deposited and the size of the deposit (so we will get some idea of volumes as well). On the enforcement side, there is provision to understand whether the enforcement activity leads to a formal caution, a fixed penalty fine, a prosecution, a custodial sentence or community service. On costs, for the smaller incidents we are going to use standardised costs agreed with the local authorities to reduce the burden under the system, and for the larger-scale incidents of more than one 20-tonne load we will put the actual costs in, and we will also have data on the fines that are tied to the individual cases. I think the issue there is quite an important one because fines at the moment are running at around £2,000 an average for the Agency's cases, which is disproportionate to the value people involved in this activity can gain from that activity. Also, as we have launched Flycapture out we now have 75% of the local authorities signed on to use the system, so with 400 plus local authorities there are still only outstanding 114 and we are working hard to get all of those local authorities into the system. We ran our first major training workshop with them this week and we are getting a very positive response from the local authorities using the system. We also have identified that 70% of local authorities have never taken a prosecution for environmental crime, so we are working with local authorities now to run training courses for them as to how to promote prosecution for environmental crime and we are getting an enthusiastic response.

  Mrs Clark: That is amazing.

  Q75 Chairman: That figure of 70% is quite extraordinary. How did you arrive at it?

  Mr Brocklehurst: This is through dialogue with the local authorities and through data coming from the ENCAMS survey, which was a survey of local authorities who have taken action on fly-tipping, as a way of pulling together data across all the local authorities. One of the problems we have faced is that the Agency staff have been tending to get pulled down into dealing with the low end of the fly-tipping debate, dealing with what we call "white van man", which is the small-scale electrical suppliers, small-scale builders and down into the small-scale dumping of domestic materials. This is not where we should be concentrating our resources but you can see why that happens when there is a scale of activity going on and no response coming through. One of the other issues linked to Flycapture is the direction from the Secretary of State which is out for consultation to direct the Agency to concentrate on large-scale, hazardous, criminal, organised, illegal waste activities, and for the local authorities to concentrate on the smaller scale end and be the vanguard in dealing with the local issues.

  Q76 Chairman: We will come on to explore that a little bit later. On the Flycapture programme, am I right in thinking that it only applies to offences on public land?

  Mr Brocklehurst: These are incidents reported to and acted upon by the local authorities and also it would be backed up by the reporting into our own national database system. But we are looking at a phase 2 of Flycapture that would allow us to bring in data from incidents reported to the National Trust, Railtrack, British Waterways and we are exploring the issue of farmland as well as to how we can capture those private land activities. So, you are correct—

  Q77 Chairman: I am sorry, where an incident takes place on private land and it is reported to the local authority, then it is within the system.

  Mr Brocklehurst: It is within the system if a response takes place, yes.

  Dr Skinner: It is a practical issue in terms of what we can do to get the system up and running, and, by discussion and agreement with Defra and others, what Martin has called phase 1 was constrained to incidents known to either the Agency or local authorities, but, as we have said, we are already going into dialogue with others. There are practical issues about how information has got on to the system and how you have access to it and such like, but we certainly want to bring in all the other kinds of landowners. The most difficult, of course, is agricultural land, but discussions are in place and we would feel able to do that when we have the first phase launched and operating.

  Q78 Mr Thomas: From what I have heard and read about this scheme, it seems much needed. From what you have also said about identifying authorities that have not taken prosecutions, obviously there is a huge need there. Could you just say what is holding back those authorities who have not yet signed up for the scheme. Why is not every authority in England and Wales falling over themselves to be part of this? Please do not just say money to me. I think it is more than that.

  Dr Skinner: The issue, as the hot spot map shows, does vary in its intensity across the country and therefore in terms of the priorities of local authorities.

  Q79 Mr Thomas: If 70% of local authorities are not doing anything, then if that 70% were doing something the map could look even worse, could it not?

  Dr Skinner: There are two things we have given you. The 70% figure is prosecutions not taken. Some authorities are active in managing fly-tipping issues but have not actually got to the stage of taking any prosecutions. In some cases they will be ones that have been done jointly with us. The number of local authorities who are actively engaging with Flycapture is a high proportion and I think it will be a lot higher by the time we reach D-day. As I say, we are only rolling the system out, we are starting the training. Some authorities have come to the training but have not formally got on board. I am optimistic that that will happen and I am optimistic also that the availability of the data and the profile it gives to the issue will change that response as we go forward.

  Mr Brocklehurst: Could I add that the whole package of Flycapture has been put together in a very short timeframe, for an internet-based software tool. It has been developed literally in the period from about last August/September, so it is not surprising that there are a few more local authorities to come on board. We expect to see 100%.


 
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