CIPFA: Waste Procurement article - March 2010

This article, written for the CIPFA Performance Improvement Network (PIN) newsletter on 5 March 2010, looks at recent court cases involving public sector contracts. These have highlighted the fact that suppliers are increasingly more likely to prosecute if they feel that public bodies have not followed the proper legal procedures. Download the: Waste Procurement feature (PDF file, 2 pages, 437 KB) and register for the CIPFA Networks.

MPs call for more radical approach to waste management

In January 2010, a committee of MPs called on the government to bring in mandatory collection of food waste from homes and a ban on leftovers going to landfill to help reduce the amount of rubbish dumped in England. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee said the government should set targets for separate collection of food waste for composting or producing energy, while councils should support households to compost at home and do more to reduce commercial waste, which makes up 90 per cent of the rubbish generated in the UK.

The government is consulting on a landfill ban being introduced by 2020, but MPs urged it to bring forward a "more ambitious timescale" to stop certain rubbish going into the ground by 2015.

Audit Commission national study: Well Disposed

'Well Disposed', the Audit Commission's report looking into waste disposal and the challenges faced by English councils when dealing with waste, finds that waste disposal is one of the biggest, most urgent, and most costly challenges facing English councils today.

For many years councils sent a large proportion of their waste to landfill sites, but as space has run out, and as environmental concerns about such practices have increased, pressure has grown on councils to find alternatives. Now, councils face two growing costs related to landfill: rising tax for sending waste to landfill, and significant fines if they fail to meet targets to reduce the waste they send to landfill.

To avoid this, councils are instead choosing to invest in major waste treatment facilities, some of which involve the biggest contracts individual councils have ever signed up to.

Thanks in part to the delivery of some of these new facilities, and in part because of excellent efforts by residents and councils to recycle more and create less waste, the report finds that the UK is likely to meet European Union Landfill Directive targets to reduce the amount of waste that gets dumped in landfill by 2013.

The longer term picture, however, is less certain and councils and taxpayers face significant financial risks if targets are not met. In fact, councils could face fines totalling millions of pounds unless they deliver planned waste treatment facilities and keep up the pressure to reduce, reuse and recycle.

The report warns councils that they cannot rely solely on creating less waste and recycling more if the 2013 target is to be achieved. Investment in waste disposal technologies that convert waste into energy or fuel will have the most significant impact on landfill reduction and is essential. Unfortunately, delays to projects currently underway pose the greatest threat to achieving the target.

These are major, often controversial, projects that cost a minimum of £20 million and can take 10 years or more to deliver. Together they will create additional capacity for 6.4 million tonnes of waste. But if schemes already planned were delayed by just two years, England would exceed its landfill allocation by 13 per cent and incur £140 million in penalties. These would be picked up by the taxpayer.

Councils that are struggling to find effective ways of reducing their landfill cannot afford to do nothing. Even if England as a whole meets the 2013 target, those authorities that exceed their individual landfill allocations could still be facing fines of as much as £2 million each. This bill could only be paid by increasing council tax or cutting services.

The report concludes that councils must continue to act quickly and cleverly if they are to avoid substantial fines. There is a great need to choose which of the range of disposal options available gives them a solution that is both value for money and environmentally sound.

Access the full report and tools to help support local councils.