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Third ESTET National Consensus Conference
Closing the Loop:
Financing and Regulating waste strategy after the PIU
LGA View
Councillor Kay Twitchen
Chairman, Waste & Environmental Management Executive, Local Government Association
The title of this conference is Financing and regulating waste strategy after the PIU, and the first comment I must make is that I hope the PIU will really make a difference. We do need a real sea change. In my opinion the status quo is not an option, and if we carry on the way we are at present, we will miserably fail to come anywhere near meeting the Landfill Directive targets and miserably fail to deliver sustainable, environmentally friendly, waste management practices.
Of course the bit of waste that I am here to talk about is quite a small bit - Local Authorities deal with probably less than a third of all wastes. But in many ways it is the most difficult part of the waste stream to deal with, and it is certainly the part which the public thinks of when waste is discussed.
The LGA was very encouraged to have a chance to take part in the Waste Summit last year, and we warmly welcomed the Government's decision to undertake a fundamental review of the Waste Strategy 2000.
I have been on the Advisory Group throughout the progress of the study, and the LGA has worked hard to see that the local authority perspective is reflected adequately across the wide range of issues which the Unit has been considering.
We are all anticipating that the full report will be out within the next couple of months, and the LGA will be hosting a major conference of its own in London on 4 December. I am delighted that the Secretary of State, as well as Sir John Harman and Paul Hollinshead, who are here today, will be joining us at that event. What we want to do then is encourage Local Authorities to engage in the serious decisions which they will have to take. We know there must be, and will be change, and we know that Local Authorities will need to alter the way they do things and in some cases change their priorities. The LGA wants to help them to do that.
The million dollar question, of course, is what will the review say? How will it affect the waste management industry, and how will it affect local authorities? Will it be recommending fundamental changes to the way in which we address sustainable waste management, or will it just be a big push for improved performances all-round? Well, for the time being, we will just have to wait and see….
However, one of the themes of today's event is financing the waste strategy after the review's report. And from the local government perspective, funding is an absolutely critical issue. Local authorities have a long history of dealing with waste arisings, there is a great deal of good practice out there, and a great keenness to learn and improve and be more sustainable. However, the fundamental funding difficulties for local authorities are two fold : one is that they have to balance spending priorities across a whole range of services - which is more important, increasing your kerbside segregated collection, or improving a road junction? Building a MURF, or keeping an old peoples' home open? And the other problem is that we keep being asked to do new things but are never given enough new money to do them.
In its responses to successive Spending Reviews (most recently SR 2002, this year) the LGA has underlined strongly the need for significant additional resources, if big strides in sustainable waste management practices are to be made by local authorities. For, despite what has sometimes been said in the past by Ministers about increases in funding for waste management/recycling in the overall block of expenditure in which it falls (along with lots of other things such as coastal protection, energy conservation, town and country planning, environment health etc. etc) the truth is that it is nowhere near enough to allow local authorities to devote sufficient resources to waste management, when faced with competing local priorities from other services.
The need for additional resources to match the good and innovative ideas of local authorities can be graphically illustrated by DEFRA's £140M waste minimisation and recycling fund, which is being provided over a two-year period. In short, it is just nowhere near big enough! This is clear from the fact that first-round applications were over-prescribed by something like four times. There are plenty of examples from around the country of local authorities operating excellent recycling services for local people. But as we all know, this is done at a cost, and that cost has to be met from somewhere.
As we know from the Spending Review announcement a little earlier this year, decisions on funding waste management for local authorities for the years ahead (2003/04 - 2005/06) will not be taken until the Strategy Unit's report is published. We know also that decisions on the landfill tax and the future of the landfill tax credit scheme (LTCS) will be announced at the same time.
Without trying to second-guess what will happen on landfill tax and LTCS, if landfill tax were to be hiked up in a few years' time to the levels in many European countries, the LGA's position is clear - we want a direct, straightforward and transparent link back to local authorities to allow the money raised in landfill tax to be put to good use by local authorities in promoting sustainable waste management. Not diverted off - through unelected and unaccountable Environmental Bodies - to other environmental projects (however worthy) which may have little or nothing to do with achieving the aim of sustainable waste management.
And, of course, local authorities would need adequate advance warning of any big changes in the level of Landfill Tax - something between three and five years - in order to be able to re-negotiate contracts and put in place sound new arrangements for alternative methods of dealing with waste other than landfill.
It might seem that a lot of what I am saying comes down to the need for more cash. And in part it does. In a nutshell, sufficient funding is needed to enable local authorities to get on with the job of meeting waste sustainability targets. If you look at the way in which local authorities have responded to the so-called fridge crisis this year, they have actually dealt with the problems on the ground rather well, and that has been acknowledged publicly by Michael Meacher when he announced (in July) additional funding to assist local authorities in dealing with fridges for this financial year. Again, the funding (£40 million) is not enough to meet local authorities' actual costs, but nevertheless, it is certainly welcome.
The fridge crisis illustrates quite well the increasing pressures that will come to bear on local authorities in the waste management arena, as further EU directives and regulations continue to pour forth.
On the horizon is the WEEE directive, which has huge implications for the way in which as a society we deal with end-of-life electrical and electronic products. Discussions are currently going on in Europe as part of the "conciliation" process (due to the differing views held by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament regarding the exact form which the final directive should take). Whatever form it does finally take, the principle of producer responsibility will clearly underpin it - and quite rightly so.
Equally clearly, though, there will be a role for local authorities to play. The point I would like to make here is that local authorities are well-placed to play a role in ensuring that more electrical/electronic goods are re-used and recycled. They have the experience, the collection systems and the infrastructure in place capable of adapting to meet new demands. So they can play an important part in making the new systems under WEEE work.
Again, however, funding does play an important part, and local authorities would need to have their costs met. But the point is that local authorities can play a pivotal role in what will be needed. We would therefore encourage DTI and DEFRA to work closely with the LGA and local authorities, as well as all the other parties, to ensure that the whole process is well-planned- and planned adequately in advance of deadlines for systems going "live". Because the timescale for implementation - once the EU "conciliation" process has led to an agreed Directive - is a demanding one, and much will need to be done.
Another EU directive which will have significant implications for local authorities is the End of Life Vehicles Directive - which should have been transposed into the UK last April, but which we now understand will not be implemented until next year, as is happening in other European countries. Again, local authorities are likely to be at the sharp end of things - as they were with fridges - as the significantly higher costs of scrap yards dealing with end of life vehicles under the forthcoming Directive mean that many people will choose to dump their car instead of paying the higher fees for disposal. We have to look to government again to meet the increased costs which local authorities will inevitably bear in dealing with larger numbers of abandoned vehicles.
The point here really is that there is a price to be paid for achieving the transformation from a society which, like ours, is generally environmentally unaware to one which is more environmentally aware - from a throwaway" culture, to one which regards rubbish as a re-usable resource.
And a bit further down the track there will be another significant EU directive on biodegradable waste management, or composting, which will require significant changes in the way we do things at present.
The Landfill Directive itself, of course, has a major impact, as requirements to find alternative means of disposal for things which should never really have been dumped in the ground in the first place have to be found. Linked to all this is the outcome of DEFRA's review of the Special Waste Regulations, which we await with interest.
The LGA works closely with its sister organisation, the Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA), and also through the Best Value Waste Network, set up last year, to promote local authority best practice in sustainable waste management. We also have good links with WRAP, and are developing closer links with other bodies, such as the Community Recycling Network (CRN). In fact, at the LGA conference I mentioned earlier, on 4 December, we will be launching a joint protocol between the LGA and CRN, which will form the basis of closer working relationships between local authorities and community recycling groups.
So we are committed to an agenda of continuous improvement, building on the good practice out there among many local authorities, and working with other key organisations in the sustainable waste management field.
And so, returning finally to the theme of the outcomes of the Strategy Unit review, of course what we would like to see is a less prescriptive regime as far as local authorities are concerned - one which encourages innovation and supports success. This would be very much in keeping with the spirit of the Government's de-regulation agenda and the closer joint working with LGA and local authorities which Government is committed to. In short, we could do with a bit more carrot and a bit less stick. That is a message which, if there are any Best Value inspectors here today, they might like to take away with them and reflect on! 
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