Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-115)
DEPARTMENT OF
THE ENVIRONMENT
FOR NORTHERN
IRELAND
30 NOVEMBER 2005
Q100 Mr Bacon: Whether or not you
plead guilty to that, I do not know. What I do want to know is,
when it says the Department challenges some of the conclusions,
where you challenged these conclusions and if you disagreed with
these experts, why you appointed them in the first place, if,
in your view, they were not up to the job?
Mr Peover: Challenged in the sense
that we think that there has been more progress on some measures
than they had assessed. We had had some assessment of our own
and we should have differed from them on some aspects. We were
not challenging fundamentally the assessment they arrived at.
Q101 Mr Bacon: How much did you pay
them? How much did this review they did cost?
Mr Peover: The Waste Management
Advisory Board?
Q102 Mr Bacon: Yes, not the Reflections,
the Waste Management Advisory Board 2004 review of NIWMS,
Mr Aston: I am not sure of the
exact figure, but I think the board cost us over its three-year
term of office something around £55,000 in expenses and a
minor honorarium for the chair. Not only should the Department
be independent in its view, but we also like independent views
to come to us. If we look very briefly at the precursor to the
Waste Management Advisory Board, which was the waste management
group, very, very many of whom became members of the board, they
gave us 104 recommendations for the first strategy in Waste
Management 2000 and we took on board 98. In the new strategy
we have taken on not quite the same percentage, but very close
to the same percentage of their recommendations. We do listen
to them, but sometimes we challenge them too.
Q103 Kitty Ussher: Much of what I
wanted to ask has already been asked, but just listening to the
debate I get the impression that you admit that really your Department
was failing, did not implement the plan which you published in
2000, at least got very behind on it, and did not implement the
relevant EU directives, but have now caught up with that. You
are now consulting on a new waste management strategy. What confidence
can you give the Committee that the mistakes of the past will
not simply be repeated?
Mr Peover: As part of the process
of drawing up the first Waste Management Strategy we had committed
ourselves to having a review and that is what has led to this
revised document. The revised document picks up a whole lot of
the issues which have been raised with us by others and we are
trying to be firmer in terms of setting targets, firmer in terms
of trying to identify what will happen on the ground in future.
Mr Williams has already challenged me to write to him in due course
and confirm that we have done what we set out to do. We have really
learned lessons now from the past. We were under very significant
pressure to get a waste management strategy in place because we
were non-compliant. We needed to get the strategy out; we needed
to work with our partners in the local authorities to get a compliance
strategy which would save us from the risk of EU infraction proceedings.
We did that; it was not perfect, far from perfect and we have
learned lessons from it that we need to be firmer, we need to
be more detailed, we need to include harder targets and we need
to monitor data and measure progress against those targets on
a regular basis. There is a whole series of measures, whether
quarterly returns from local authorities on the one hand, or surveys
of waste streams. In the strategy we are proposing to have more
detailed arrangements for data holding, data recording and transmission
to us so we can monitor progress. The proof of the pudding will
be in the eating, but I do think we have genuinely learned lessons
from the failings of the past.
Q104 Kitty Ussher: What would you
like this Committee to hold you to account over? What are your
key performance indicators?
Mr Peover: I mentioned the Sustainable
Development Strategy: we need to get an overarching strategy in
place under which we can see a whole range of government activities,
whether procurement or our own waste management, the activities
of the various departments contributing to education of children
and how best to deal with environmental issues, our own department's
work and planning. That strategy will set a context within which
we can move ourselves forward. That is one key indicator: do we
get that strategy in place and do we start seeing the coordination
of government activity in Northern Ireland to implement it? The
other is getting a new waste management strategy in place which
is a very key component of that Sustainable Development Strategy.
Q105 Kitty Ussher: You are still
talking about documents and plans.
Mr Peover: I am referring to the
outputs. Those documents are not important in themselves: what
is important is what they contain by way of targets and outcomes.
Q106 Kitty Ussher: But you are not
able to give the Committee specific targets for which you wish
us to hold you to account.
Mr Peover: We are in the middle
of a consultative process. At the end of that we shall produce
a new waste management strategy with hard targets in it and I
am very happy for you to hold us to account for those.
Mr Rogers: May I add, on an issue
touched on by two members, illegal dumping, that the agency is
currently out, I am afraid, to more consultation, but at least
we have said publicly just within the last few weeks that we want
to be driving down the proportional amount of illegal dumping
over the next decade to a figure of less than 1% of the total
waste arisings. That is a very challenging target for us in a
situation of uncertainty about both the amount which is taking
place and the financial and environmental impact. That at least
is something for which both of you can hold us to account over
the intervening period.
Q107 Kitty Ussher: So we have illegal
dumping down to 1% in the next decade.
Mr Rogers: Of the total waste
arisings. That is our stated objective, subject to the comments
of those whom we have asked to comment on our draft strategy.
Q108 Kitty Ussher: Okay, so that
is one thing we can put on record. The only other thing we can
have at the moment is the strategy itself, which will be completed
in the spring and the Sustainable Development Strategy which will
be completed in the summer.
Mr Peover: Yes; in the summer.
The key targets will still be the key targets which are in this
because they are required of us, but we shall have more targets
and that is the harder edge which we shall have to this whole
process. With the benefit of hindsight, we were too timorous,
too timid in target setting. We were under considerable pressure
to get a strategy in place and that was done, but we could do
more and we perhaps should have done more.
Mr Aston: Earlier in the year
we produced a document called Best Practicable Environmental
Options, which is a horrible title, but it was a broad assessment
of what the environment and economy should put together as a network
of facilities, which is the directive compliance central principle.
That sets out very clear targets which we intend to set in the
strategy, subject to consultation. We think they will stand and
they are published and, for example, one of them is by the year
2010 only 55% of waste going to landfill. Bearing in mind that
we have over 90% reliance on landfill, that is a very tight target.
Q109 Kitty Ussher: In terms of making
your targets actually bite, would you publish, say quarterly,
updates against all your targets as an organisation as opposed
to the councils providing it to you?
Mr Peover: Yes; we are the central
data collection point for this.
Q110 Kitty Ussher: So anyone, at
any point, will be able to see over the internet; I am sure all
the members of our Committee will be doing it on a daily basis.
Mr Peover: Yes.
Q111 Greg Clark: A question to the
Comptroller and Auditor General. The question of the target and
the progress towards it is clearly of interest and we do not have
these hearings terribly often. It is a little disappointing that,
given there is no information on these targets, we were left with
a brief which said that it was too early to assess progress. Would
it not have been possible to have updated this Report, since I
gather the information came out just after it was finalised?
Mr Dowdall: Yes, I take your point
and we shall pay attention to that in future. If there is any
opportunity to get additional information to you on updating targets,
we shall do that.
Q112 Greg Clark: In particular, with
this new information which has come out, which is 18% of the 25%
target by 2010 for BMW waste, is that something you could look
at to see whether that is a robust assessment and comment on whether,
in your view, the Department is on target to hit the 2010 target?
Could you then write to the Committee?
Mr Dowdall: I am happy to do that.
Q113 Mr Bacon: On the same subject,
on page 20 where there are various targets, is it possible you
could send us a note covering each of the different areas and
where your figures come from and how reliable they are? In each
of these there should be a figure for 2005 and in many cases it
says "no targets". To know where things are now would
be very helpful.[2]
Mr Peover: That is the gap I was
talking about earlier on, where we do not have enough targets.
We have enough targets to satisfy the directive compliance, but
we do not have enough targets to hold people to account in detail.
Q114 Mr Bacon: And to know what proportion
is currently happening would be helpful.
Mr Peover: Yes, I take your point.
We did not want to give you data which had not been cleared with
the Audit Office, since this was a relatively recent Report, but
there are updated data and there will be more. To go back to the
waste management order of the Department, our own solid waste,
we are undertaking an independent audit of progress on that in
the new year, so even more data will be recorded.
Q115 Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you
very much. In conclusion, I think this Committee will be Reporting
that your performance is poor when benchmarked against the rest
of the United Kingdom, you are not enforcing proper financial
controls, you are relying on councils and then not ensuring that
they carry out their responsibilities and we shall want to have
firm commitments from you, Mr Peover, that after our Report is
submitted you intend to establish targets which are going to be
met.
Mr Peover: Yes.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
2 Ev 11-12 Back
| 
