SWR4

Legislation Committee No 1

Response to the Consultation on the Proposed Shipment of Waste for Recovery (Community Involvement in Arrangements) (Wales) Measure

Caerphilly County Borough Council

Re: Consultation on the Proposed Shipment of Waste for Recovery (Community Involvement in Arrangements) (Wales) Measure

Thank you for providing the opportunity to respond to the proposed measure. Please find enclosed a response from Caerphilly County Borough Council to the specific questions raised.

1. Is there a need for an Assembly Measure in relation to community involvement in local authorities arrangements for dealing with recyclate?

Public engagement and awareness is fundamental if local authorities across Wales are going to strive to meet the challenging targets set out in the Welsh Assembly Governments’ proposed future waste strategy.  However, the Authority does not consider a measure to be the best way of achieving community involvement.  On the contrary, there is concern that the measure could potentially damage public confidence in recycling at a time when the community buy-in is of paramount importance.

We believe that community involvement in local authority recycling arrangements would be better achieved through pro-active communication campaigns at both a local and national level.  The Authority supports the work being conducted by organisations such as Waste Awareness Wales and believes that more direct routes of community involvement will have a greater impact than a statement on a website.

2. What are your views on the key provisions set out in the proposed measure, ie:

- The duty on local authorities in Wales to prepare statements in relation to waste destined for recovery shipped outside the European Community and European Free Trade Area (EFTA) (Section 55 A (2));

The ability of local authorities to obtain the data required to prepare statements is of great concern and will undoubtedly prove difficult.  The measure does not give any powers to local authorities to obtain this information and appears to have overlooked the possibility of placing an obligation on reprocessors to provide it.

- the information required for the statement (section 55A, subsection 5 (a) - (f));

The information required for the statement is detailed and does not appear to recognise the complexities of municipal waste disposal.  It over-looks the possibility of municipal waste streams becoming mixed and taken to a range of final destinations for disposal.

- the arrangements for publication of the statement;

The suggested publication of a statement on the Authority’s website is not considered to be the most effective reporting mechanism.  The Waste Dataflow system is already being used by Local Authorities across Wales to record waste data and should be utilised to report the information required, minimising the needs for duplication and ensuring consistency.

- the requirement to include in the statement an invitation to the public to make representations to the authority on arrangements for waste destined for recovery (section 55B, sub-section 3;)

The requirement of local authorities to invite representations from the public will result in an increased resource burden.  Whilst the Authority fully supports the role of public engagement in developing its waste services it considers mechanisms such as community meetings, waste forums and site visits to be more appropriate than the approach proposed by this measure.

- the requirement of the Authority to have regard to representations when deciding on future arrangements for waste destined for recovery (section 55B, sub-section 5),

Whilst the Authority fully supports the role of public engagement in developing its waste services the measure appears to have overlooked the fact that in practice individual local authorities do not always deal with the end processor and therefore have a limited role in securing markets.  Therefore, it must be recognised that representations from the public may have a limited impact.

3. Do the above provisions provide the most appropriate means for ensuring community involvement in local authorities arrangements for dealing with recyclate?   

The Authority does not believe that the proposed measure is the most appropriate means of ensuring community involvement.  As stated in the response to question 1, the Authority believes that more direct and pro-active communications on both a local and national level would have a greater impact.  There is concern that difficulties by local authorities in obtaining and reporting the required information would have the potential to have an adverse effect on community involvement and has the potential to reduce public support and participation.

4. What are the practical and financial implications of putting these provisions in place?

There are significant practical and financial implications associated with the implementation of this proposed measure.  From a Local Authority perspective there is concern over the additional resource that will be required to monitor and report performance.   As previously stated by the WLGA, this is likely to equate to an additional £25,000 per annum per authority (equivalent of 1 FTE).  Will this be fully funded by Welsh Assembly Government?  Existing budgets would not be able to support this additional resource requirement without reducing current recycling services.   

5. Will the proposed measure achieve its overall purpose and aims, i.e. to engender greater transparency and openness in the way that Welsh local authorities deal with recyclate; for residents to encourage local authorities to use recycling facilities nearer to the source of the recyclate than those further away; and increased interest and possibly participation, in recycling?

The Authority believes that the proposed measure, if implemented, is unlikely to achieve its overall purpose and aims.  As outlined above there is significant concern over the ability of local authorities to obtain the information required in the format specified and a deeper concern that this will lead to accusations of non-transparency and a resultant decrease in public support and participation.  In order for local authorities to respond to the challenges set out in the draft waste strategy we hope that WAG support new collection and re-processing in Wales and do not burden local authorities with a high-administrative measure that may undo all the positive work that has been achieved to date.