Waste not want not - States Assembly

The revision should cover:
1. guidance to ensure that conditions to lessen
any health impacts of a waste facility are
dealt with in granting a pollution control
permit rather than within the planning
permission process (this happens, for
example, for telephone masts). There should
also be clarification of which other issues are
for the pollution control permit rather than
planning;
2. guidance on the requirement to keep
development plans up to date; and
3. an expectation that local authorities should
give reasons when they turn down a specific
application which conforms with their plan. If
their reasons are site or facility specific they
should make these clear and retain them for
any future application.
8.46 As part of this revision, consideration
should be given to designating specific sites in
the local plan for locating waste facilities in
advance of individual planning applications.
This would have the advantage of speeding up
the planning process. On the other hand, it
could delay the whole plan, and identification
of sites in advance may blight land and prevent
any development in the vicinity.
Improved performance
A Steering Group reporting to the
Secretary of State
8.47 In the short to medium term, there needs
to be a driving force for co-ordinating all the
recommendations in this report. Waste Strategy
2000 was followed up by a monitoring and
evaluation group that no longer exists. In order
to make progress, a high-level and highpowered
body to drive forward implementation
of the strategy in this report is required.
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DETR, Strong Local Leadership – Quality Public Services, (2001)
8.48 A high level steering group that reports to
the Secretary of State and chaired by a senior
external figure should be set up. It should
comprise around 10 senior figures able to
address delivery, strategy and performance
issues from government, the EA, the waste
industry, the community sector, local
government, WRAP and academia. A core of the
current SU Waste Advisory Group might provide
some of the members for this group.
Recommendation 33:
A high-level steering group, chaired by a
senior external figure and reporting to the
Secretary of State for the Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs should be set up to drive
forward the recommendations in this report.
Performance of local authorities
8.49 Over 100 local authorities say they will fail
to meet their statutory waste targets. If
additional resources are directed to waste
management, then an appropriate performance
framework must be in place to ensure that
progress is made.
8.50 The Local Government White Paper 141 sets
out an approach to address all aspects of service
performance. Outcomes are assessed through
the new Comprehensive Performance
Assessment (CPA) that includes an analysis of
Best Value Performance Indicators (including
nine indicators for waste), inspections and
corporate service planning systems.
Improvements identified by the CPA are set out
in its Best Value Performance Plan. Chapter 6 set
out the reasons why the Best Value indicators
for waste management provide conflicting
signals for local authorities. Making the
appropriate changes will therefore enhance the
CPA process applied to waste. An additional
consideration is whether this is enough or
whether waste should be given a higher priority
within this process, albeit for a limited period.
FUNDING AND DELIVERY
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