Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
120-139)
MR PHILLIP
WARD
15 OCTOBER 2008
Q120 David Lepper: What sort of feedback
have you had from the partners that you have been working with
in the past to your revised, reduced budget and the plans that
you are able to put into operation because of it?
Mr Ward: I think there are two
sorts of reaction. Obviously, from the local authority point of
view, some disappointment that we do not have money to give them
to promote their communication campaigns, and that is understandable,
but, equally, I think we have had a good response from people
about the way in which we have gone about consulting and involving
them in how we made these choices and in how we are going to go
forward. So we have done our best to bring our stakeholders with
us so they understand what we are doing and why we are doing it,
and I think we have been reasonably successful in getting them
to understand that.
Q121 David Lepper: Defra has been
carrying out a delivery landscape review. What contribution did
WRAP make to that?
Mr Ward: Like all the other delivery
bodies encompassed by the review, we have been submitting evidence
to them about our view of the world, how we see the delivery landscape,
what improvements we would like to see and also commenting on
some of their early thoughts about options that might be considered,
and we have, obviously, made our full views known on that. I guess
the key thought: we are very keen that Defra should recognise
the importance of resource efficiency as a total activity involving
both households and businesses, recycling businesses, retailers,
you know, a complete group of people in the different stages of
the loop I have described. We think it is really important that
there should be a body which is capable of taking that overview
around the whole loop and not being tempted into thinking that
somehow everything would be tidy, if everything was swept into
one national body. There is a case for a degree of specialism.
Q122 David Lepper: Looking a bit
further ahead insofar as that is possible, after 2011, after this
spending round, is there a future for WRAP or is the work that
you do likely to be dispersed elsewhere?
Mr Ward: We have obviously been
giving some thought to where we go. Our current business plan
takes us to 2011. Obviously, you begin to think about what the
next one might involve. We believe that the resource efficiency
agenda will still be very important in 2011. We are obviously
facing up to oil prices and carbon, which are very, very important
debates, but the availability of physical resources to make the
things that we all need, the products and so on, is going to be
something which we will not have solved by 2011. Our view is that
we need a resource-efficiency body and we think we would like
to make our case for being the authoritative body for resource
efficiency, and that is the role we would like to try and develop
for ourselves post 2011.
Q123 Mr Drew: I remember going with
this committee to visit Leicester to see the work that you have
done in partnership with that authority. Do you get frustrated
that you have got local authorities who really buy into this and
are prepared to put the resources where their mouth is that they
make a really good contribution but there are an awful lot of
local authorities who would not be on the same planet as Leicester?
How do you get them on the same planet? Is that not one of your
weaknesses, that you just do not have the ability to disseminate
the really good practice to make a difference?
Mr Ward: I think we do have the
ability to disseminate. We need to bear in mind that there is
a standard policy which is around giving local authorities the
freedom to make their own choices and deciding on the future of
their own areas. So we are in one sense limited by a desire not
to have central dictation to authorities—the non Stalinist
approach—but we do work very extensively, and what we are
trying to do now is to target our activities on the authorities
who are clearly having trouble with their recycling rates, who
are not getting up to the mark. In the past we have tended to
sit and wait for people to come knocking on our door saying, "Can
you help?" We are now going knocking on their door saying,
"We think we have got something to offer you." So we
are trying to engage more proactively, we are trying to offer
them a more integrated service so we can offer them technical
advice on how to do it but also advice on how to communicate and
how to deal with the difficulties that come up. If you look at
Tower Hamlets, we have got a high concentration of flats, and
so on. These are very special and different issues to solve compared
with the problems that you might have in a more rural area. So
we are trying to identify the issues and the challenges for them
and offer them targeted advice. Before I came away I was looking
at the fact that we are just about to train our two thousandth
local authority officer in aspects of improved recycling practice;
so I think our reach in terms of getting the message out is quite
strong but, at the end of the day, you have to get a lot of things
coming together, which is a local authority who wants to make
progress and a team behind it with the necessary skills who can
make it happen.
Q124 Paddy Tipping: Can I take you
briefly back to the Landscape Review, because you are providing
information and you are having a discussion with Defra. Just remind
me, the people who are running this review actually work in Defra,
do they not? There are no outsiders involved. It is an in-house
exercise.
Mr Ward: This is the review of
the Strategy.
Q125 Paddy Tipping: The Landscape
Review.
Mr Ward: The Landscape Review.
The Landscape Review is being run essentially by Defra civil servants,
although I believe they have a consultant employed: from Serco,
I think. So I think they have employed external consultants to
help them.
Q126 Paddy Tipping: Would it not
be better to have some outsiders on that body? Is there not a
danger that Defra just want to tidy the world up and reduce budgets?
Mr Ward: I imagine that the process
they are going to go through at some point will be they will take
this to the Waste Strategy Board, or some such body. I am not
quite sure how they are going to get their external input. Obviously,
each of the delivery bodies has had their say, so we are being
listened to in that sense, but whether an external view would
be necessary, I am afraid that is not something I am competent
to comment on.
Q127 Paddy Tipping: You do not subscribe
to the conspiracy theory that there is a grand design across there
at Defra that is going to change the world between policy analysis
and the people who are going to deliver for Defra?
Mr Ward: I only subscribe to conspiracy
theories on Friday afternoons. That is my iron rule on these things.
Q128 Chairman: We will have a special
session then at half past three on Friday and see what you have
to say. It could be really interesting! You have been involved
in some of the efforts to reclassify materials which might have
gone as waste but which could be used as a raw material together
with the Environment Agency in terms of developing these new waste
protocols. Would you like to give us some commentary on how you
think that exercise is going, whether you think it is going to
deliver and what you think the results will be?
Mr Ward: You have heard quite
a bit about the number—I think 15 protocols currently underway.
Only one has so far been published. We are very pleased with the
way the protocols are going. It is taking longer than perhaps
we might have thought when we set out, but the issues are, as
it were, difficult ones and they need to be got right. We do agree
with the Environment Agency on that point, that producing a protocol
which is defective and which immediately becomes dismissed as
ill-founded is not going to help anybody. It is important we get
them right. The one which has been published, we have, I think,
vindicated all our hopes for this process, in the sense that the
minute it was published the applications to register for the PAS
100 compost standard went through the roof so that it was immediately
seen by the sector as being a valuable thing which is being done
and, therefore, a good thing. I think it is also important—to
get out a point that has been made—that because the Waste
Framework Directive is now importing this concept into the European
context, the fact that the European Commission are following this
very closely, and we hope will follow a very similar pattern in
relation to Europe—
Q129 Chairman: You indicated that
the first of these 15 had taken longer than you anticipated. Is
that because of the technical difficulty of doing the work? It
is not an issue of resource?
Mr Ward: No, I do not think it
is an issue of resource. I think Paul Leinster said explicitly
he thought 15 was what was manageable. These are very technical
issues. The one on composting turned on really quite difficult
issues around metallic traces in the soil and the impact that
has on microbial activity. This is not trivial stuff; it really
needs to be got to the bottom of, and it does require someone
to bring together the right technical expertise and make sure
we get the right answer.
Q130 Chairman: If it is getting such
rave reviews as far as the first one is concerned, what would
your recommendation be to try to speed the process up? Because
you have only got 14 to go now, so the job is on the move.
Mr Ward: To be fair, I think there
are significant sections of that 14 which are very close to being
published now, so the work on that is largely done. Our view,
I think, is that by having a team that becomes more expert in
the process you have to go through and the best way of resolving
difficulties, and so on, the process is likely to speed up rather
than slow down as people become familiar with the process. It
will be possible to speed them up. I think that is probably the
most important thing. Obviously, there is always a case for adding
a little more resource at the margin, more money for research,
consultants, or whatever, but I really think that the main thing
is to have clarity about the process and getting all the stakeholders
to understand what is going on and getting buy-in to that and,
once that is running as a smoothly operating process, they should
roll off the production line fairly regularly.
Q131 Chairman: You have been playing
a very significant part in helping England to increase its recycling
rates, and the steepness of the hill over time will just get steeper.
They are challenging targets. Would you agree that the targets
are challenging that we have set ourselves?
Mr Ward: I think that they are,
and I think it is quite important to look back a little bit at
where we have come from, because in 2000 we recycled very little.
We have accelerated very fast to the point where we are now. Roughly
about 34% was the last figure I saw. That is an astonishing performance
by local authorities, but in order to get there they have essentially
adopted a very British approach to make do and mend with whatever
kit they can lay their hands on, and very limited amounts of new
investment being available, and also uncertainties about reprocessing
infrastructure and where stuff is going to go. What we have ended
up with is a very diverse system: lots of authorities running
different ways trying to solve the same problem, depending largely
on which particular investment they have made in trucks and when
their contracts with their waste contractors are coming up for
renewal, and so on. So we have a very great patchwork. The research
we have done about the barriers to recycling shows us quite clearly
that this is a significant barrier now to people. They do not
understand it, they do not quite understand why it is different
here, why their mum has a different system where she lives, and
so there is a significant proportion saying: "It is too difficult.
I do not want to engage with this. I do not understand the rules.
Can I put a window envelope in here? Do I have to take the top
off the bottle?" All these things are a real barrier. We
think that if we are going to move on from 34 to 45, which is
the next immediate target, then, frankly, we have to resolve some
of these barriers, and that does mean trying to get more consistency
around at least what local authorities collect. There is convergence
going on in relation to that but it needs to speed up. For example,
I discovered the other day there are still 28 authorities who
do not collect tin cans.
Q132 Chairman: Who is going to do
that job of improving the consistency? Who actually has got it
on the agenda as a job that we must do?
Mr Ward: We have.
Q133 Chairman: But?
Mr Ward: We have to work with
other people. We have to work with the Local Government Association,
for example, and we work with LARAC, which is the Committee of
Recycling Officers. We have to work with these people in order
to get the local government buy-in to this and we have to make
the case to people. We have to provide them with a valid argument
for why they should do this and what benefit they will get from
it. This is work which we are doing and we have initiated a project
now working with all those groups, which we call the principles
of a good recycling service. This is designed to try to establish
some common ground about what a good recycling system would actually
look like so that the public, who were used to people coming and
taking their bin away once a week and putting it in a hole in
the ground but are now presented with an array of different systems
and they do not really know if what they are getting is what they
should be entitled to expect. So we think it is really quite important
that we try to establish some common ground between us and the
Local Government Association and its members to try to see if
we can get some agreement on what the basic provision ought to
be for a good recycling service, and we need to start that process
moving forward.
Q134 Chairman: At the domestic level,
if you are going to improve further recycling rates, is it a question
of more carrots or more sticks?
Mr Ward: I would think, if you
are driving a donkey, the choice between carrots and sticks is
one you may need to resolve. I always think when you are dealing
with a whole population, what you really need is both those implements
and a few more besides. You are dealing with intelligent human
beings; they are going to be motivated by different things and
will respond to different sticks. What we believe very firmly
is that most people, if they are provided with a service that
fits their circumstances, that they can use satisfactorily, if
it is explained to them properly and if it is delivered reliably,
will try to fit in with the system, will try to do what the system
is asking them to do, and only a relatively small proportion of
the population just will not be bother and will not make any effort.
So this question about sticks—fining people for not following
the rules and so on—is something which we believe should
be very much a last resort to be applied when people have had
the system explained to them, their difficulties have been addressed
and, if they are still not using the system, then fining is a
last resort. Basically, we think the key thing here is to develop
a system which people understand, is convenient for them, is flexible
to reflect different circumstances. If you live in a small, two-bedroom
maisonette in a crowded street your ability to take five large
wheelie bins in your garden is going to be heavily constrained.
You need to have a system which is suited to your circumstances.
If it is explained to you and it is convenient and it is delivered
sensibly, that is the way we would like to go to get people to
do it because it is the right thing to do and they feel good about
it.
Q135 David Lepper: Have you looked
at what happens in any other European countries?
Mr Ward: Yes.
Q136 David Lepper: Have you come
across systems where, instead of this: "If you want to do
it, you do it and if you do not want to do it, you do not do it",
which is the system that you are basically describing, that is
out of the window and things are much more in line with the Paddy
Tipping approach of, "This is what you will do across the
country. Get on with it"?
Mr Ward: No, I do not think we
have come across a system like that, to be honest.
Q137 Paddy Tipping: The day will
come!
Mr Ward: What we tend to find
in continental countries is, because the individual municipalities
can be quite small, you do tend to find conglomerations of municipalities
and they will agree a common approach and apply that across a
number of different the communes. I am not aware of systems where
it is laid down that it has got to be done this way or that way?
Q138 Paddy Tipping: In your evidence
you told us that waste was being exported abroad. Is that plastics
and paper?
Mr Ward: Those are the two main
items, yes.
Q139 Paddy Tipping: Why is that?
Why can we not have the facilities here to deal with that?
Mr Ward: Two reasons really. One
is that we do not have the facilities here: the investment has
not taken place so our recycling is growing faster than the investment
in it. The other one would be that China, which is where most
of this stuff goes, is desperately short of resources and prepared
to pay a very high price for it. So the economics of investing
here and trying to close the loop here do not look as good as
sending it to China, where they are prepared to pay very high
price for the material. I think that is essentially what underlies
it. I think there are aspects of the system which are unhelpful,
in the sense that the packaging recovery system probably does
not help with the closed looping, and I think there are changes
which could be made to that which would increase the incentives
for closed loop recycling in the UK, but essentially that is it.
It is a global market for these commodities and they move where
we get the best price.
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