International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

60.7 Decision/Allocation Mechanism for Funding Awards
The most oft-cited method to allocate funding is through a competitive tendering
process. The way in which this is administered varies across funding streams.
However, it is common for environmental funds, financed by the taxation, to be set up
in order to administer and manage the allocation of the money. The way in which this
fund is managed varies greatly as demonstrated by the following examples.
The LCF is regulated by the independent organisation ENTRUST. They are not-forprofit
and non-governmental. Although not involved in the final allocation of the fund,
Entrust are fundamental to reviewing the projects undertaken by environmental
bodies. Distributive Environmental Bodies makes the decision regarding the project
funding – these are often associated with the Landfill Operator, e.g. SITA Trust, Viridor
Credits Environmental Company. The taxes which are not donated to the fund
managed by HM Treasury, who also oversee ENTRUST, and DEFRA is instrumental in
setting out the goals which the fund hopes to achieve. Despite the ongoing nature of
the funding applicants can only apply for the same site or project once every three
years. 1133
The ALSF is managed by the following governments and government departments:
Defra in England; the Welsh Assembly Government in Wales; the Scottish Government
in Scotland; and the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland. In England,
the management bodies set the overall fund objectives and then allocate funding to
delivering partners who then receive applications for the fund. There are nine national
organisations and 18 local authorities (who have the highest level of aggregates
production) who are delivery partners.
A competitive tendering process, managed by the Capital Grants Team at WRAP, is
undertaken to allocate the funding to the most relevant project proposals. This
includes having the applications independently assessed by a financial or
environmental assessor and specialist panel. From the announcement of the
availability of the fund there is approximately 10 weeks until the deadline for
applications. A requirement of the grant scheme is that the outcome of the funding
must be operational in 2 years from the application deadline. In order to support the
application process WRAP ran free workshop events.
European Structural and Cohesion funds are allocated as a result of a Cost-Benefit
Analysis (CBA). CBA is used as an evaluation tool to ensure that the fund gets
distributed to projects which are value for money in terms of effectiveness and
efficiency in contributing towards the main goals of the EU funds. CBA also assesses
the extent to which the project needs the grant, and the level of funding required,
using the ‘funding-gap’ method. 1134 The European Commission has encouraged this
assessment methodology across Member States.
1133 Sita Trust, Enriching Nature Guidance Notes, Available:
http://preview.sitatrust.org.uk/resources/documents/DA/DA_Guidance_Notes10.09.08.doc.dot
1134 European Commission DG for Regional Policy Evaluation Unit (2006) Cost-Benefit Analysis and EU
Regional Policy Main Lessons from the Experience, Draft paper prepared for the 5 th Milan European
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