I have an excuse of course.  You may, if you have a good memory, recall that my last post mentioned the depletion of my team.  Well, I finally fixed that in mid-December when we found the money to get someone in to cover for the poor soul who’s still off injured.

So, what have I been doing since October?  Running round like a headless chicken mostly – or at least that’s how it felt at the time.

In November, I organised 3 workshops for stakeholders to talk about the review of the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992.  We got a really good turn out from local authorities but also decent representation from some Schedule 2 customers – particularly the NHS.  I found them all really useful, with enough similar ideas coming forward at each to give me confidence that there was a consensus on many issues, but also enough new perspectives to make each one valuable in its own right.

The workshops also highlighted those key customer sectors that we don’t seem to have reached; in particular, schools and higher education.  A number of people from the education sector were specifically invited to the workshops, but I’ve clearly failed to make a good case for them to spend precious time talking to us.   The research shows that educational facilities are the largest producers of Schedule 2 waste, so I’m currently working on redressing that failure.

Unfortunately being short-staffed has meant that I haven’t produced the report of the workshops yet, but we’re working on that now and I hope to publish it in a few weeks time.  Slack blogging tendencies permitting, I’ll put up a link here.

It doesn’t always work.  Last time I did Orals for the House of Lords, I thought I’d covered all possible angles in the briefing pack – until one of the members asked a question about moles.  Thankfully ministers are pretty intelligent folks who don’t rely completely on the notes from their officials

We’re expecting the list of questions to arrive at about 3pm this afternoon, and, as a result of the depredations of contract limits, injury and viruses, my team currently consists of, um, me.  Joy!

Anyway, things are happening:

Hilary Benn’s vision for a World Without Waste.  Read it, it’s good

More ’stakeholder engagement’ (otherwise known as ‘talking to people’) on Schedule 2 of the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992.  If you’re a waste collection or disposal authority, or an existing or potential Schedule 2 customer, then book a place on one of our upcoming workshops.  You’ll get to see my lovely green* presentation.

The Waste Strategy Annual Progress Report was published on 17 October – everything is going in the right direction apart from hazardous waste arisings, but the increase is almost all due to a single plant which is now treating waste instead of it being discharged to an estuary.

Finally, but by no means least important (to me), one of my team finishes her contract with Defra today and is off to embark on a career in the private sector.  Over the past year she has been enthusiastic, helpful, and keen to learn, and she’ll be a serious loss to my team. I don’t name names in this blog, but if she reads it, she knows who she is and I wish her all good luck in the future!

*Not ‘green’ in an environmental way, but ‘green’ in a ‘really relentlessly Defra corporate green coloured’ way.  I’ll try to find a nice colourful picture of a landfill site to put in there…

Hello again world.

I haven’t actually abandoned this blog, nor has it lain fallow for want of content.  There is loads going on in the wider world of waste, and, indeed, plenty happening in my little corner of it, I just haven’t had time to write about it.

This is entirely down to my own dreadful time management, of course.  I’ve become adept at ’snoozing’ my Outlook reminders for just long enough for them to lose their urgency.  One reminder has been nudging me gently at 24 hour intervals since June*

When I started working for the Civil Service, way back at the turn of the Millennium, I was frequently told to put non-urgent work in the pending file: “we can do that in the Summer when it’s quiet.”  See, during the rest of the year, we spend a lot of time on the work that parliament creates – answering MPs questions, briefing Ministers for parliamentary questions and select committees, writing legislation to deadlines so that it can be debated at the right time and so on and so forth.  Then parliament goes into recess for the summer, and the Civil Service enters its mythical ‘quiet time’.

I say ‘mythical’ because I’ve never actually experienced it.  Ministers still need briefings for visits, the public still write to us and to their MPs and we still provide those MPs with information, we still need to talk to our stakeholders, there are projects to manage and, of course, there’s all that non-urgent stuff that we put off until summer-when-its-quiet.

Not that I’m complaining; it’s not like the rest of the world gets to bunk off for 3 months in the summer either, and since I’ve been in Waste I haven’t actually heard anyone utter the words ’summer when it’s quiet’. Perhaps those Civil Servants who remembered, or imagined, some halcyon days when the machineries of government ground to a halt along with the nation’s teenagers** have all retired?  Or maybe my colleagues, knowing that I’m an Olympic level snoozer, refrain from mentioning that they are organised enough to be able to take 2 weeks off without feeling slightly guilty?

I did, as it happens, take a fortnight off in August, and assuaged my guilt somewhat by spending an afternoon visiting the local County Council to talk about the review of Schedule 2.  On the other hand, all the people who said ‘Oh aren’t you dedicated!’ because I took a few hours out of my holiday have just made me feel even more guilty.

Anyway, one of the things that I haven’t been putting off is the Schedule 2 review.  That’s been put off for me, and I’ll make that the subject of another post because I appear to have spent this one putting off talking about it.

*An application form to become an OGC Gateway reviewer, as it happens.  Something that is personally interesting, career-enhancing, useful to other people in Government and mostly unrelated with my day job.  Hence the heroic snoozing.

**This might be slightly unfair.  I have two teenagers, and only one of them has been getting out of bed mid-afternoon all summer. ]]> http://www.spaceofwaste.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=137 2 http://www.spaceofwaste.co.uk/?p=133 http://www.spaceofwaste.co.uk/?p=133#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:13:50 +0000 Lucy http://www.spaceofwaste.co.uk/2009/06/flu-and-frustration/ So, I’ve been stuck at home for a week with flu and have managed to miss probably the single most important meeting for my Schedule 2 review project as a result.

It’s so frustrating when there’s so much going on, and so much that really needs to be done, and I’m stuck under a blanket feeling like someone has hammered nails into my head.

Hoping to get back into the fray next week, and then I should have lots to blog about (and no time to blog about it!)

ETA: was swabbed for H1N1 today by a GP who came to the door in gloves, mask and plastic pinny.  Can’t blame him, of course, but it’s not exactly reassuring for the patient!

So, here’s a run down of the Week in Waste so far:

Monday: Environment Secretary Hilary Benn announced the five anaerobic digestion projects which will get government grants.  Biodegradable waste breaks down anaerobically in landfill and producing methane gas – a partcularly potent greenhouse gas, but also a rather useful fuel.  Anaerobic digestors allow that methane to be captured and used.

Also on Monday, Jane Kennedy resigned from the government.  Jane had been the environment minister with responsibility for waste and recycling since October 2008.  I can’t comment on the political reasons for her resignation, but speaking as a civil servant, I think it’s a shame that ministers can leave, or be shuffled out of, their departments with no notice. 

Tuesday: Hilary Benn launched Defra’s new packaging strategy: Making the most of packaging 

 The first of two Defra National Indicator workshops for Local Authorities was held in Birmingham.  A few of us policy leads gave short presentations on our various indicators, but most of the day was for LAs to talk among themselves and tell Defra what’s working, what’s not, and what’s missing from the indicator set. 

There were some really interesting discussions, and it was great to see so many LA reps there who want to work with Defra to ensure that we get a set of National Indicators that meet both local and national needs. 

Sadly I can’t make the next workshop in Reading, but I’m looking forward to seeing the outputs.

Wednesday: Portfolios were announced for our new ministers.  The new man in waste and recycling is Dan Norris, MP for Wansdyke in Somerset.

I braved the Underground strike to go to the Futuresource conference.  Thanks to the tremendously helpful map of central London provided by TFL, I managed to find a route to ExCel that was actually faster than if I’d gone by Tube.

The Defra exhibition stand was fairly quiet, which we hope is a reflection of the excellence of our ongoing communications rather than just because no-one cares! 

Personally I had several tremendously useful conversations with people who tracked me down, though.  Particular thanks to Tina Benfield of CIWM for her enthusiasm, insight and general desire to help with the review of the Controlled Waste Regulations.

On the other hand, I didn’t get to go to any of the sessions that I’d marked in my programme, and completely failed to get any freebies off the the other stands.  I shall have to be more organised next year!

Thursday: seems to have been pretty quiet so far…

It was a very interesting conference from the point of view of a relative newbie to the industry; although all the policy-type stuff was in the first session, I found that the presentations on the operational issues of recycling collections gave me a really useful insight into what’s happening on the ground.

I was there as an ordinary attendee, but my cover was soon blown by Defra’s Head of Waste Strategy, and I had to give an update on our review of Schedule 2 of the Controlled Waste Regulations from my hiding place at the back of the audience.  Still, it has given me my first taste of fame!

There was a good turnout from Local Authorities, and coffee breaks and lunch gave me a good opportunity to talk to them about Schedule 2.  I admit, I was expecting to get my ear bent a bit, and was pleasantly surprised at the pragmatic approach of most.  We seem to have succeeded in getting out the message that legislative change could take time, and they seemed generally happy that we are taking the review forward as fast as we can.

National Indicators came up a couple of times in conversation too, with some people expressing concern that they might not be as joined-up as they could be, and in particular that they should be based on carbon dioxide equivalents rather than tonnages.  Apparently a certain local authority (who shall remain nameless since I only have this information by hearsay) is trucking their green waste to a composter several counties away.

CLG have recently asked all Government Departments to start reviewing their NI sets, so I’ll be working on that over the coming months.  The current waste NIs seem to be reasonably popular with local authorities, but I’ll be attending a Defra-organised workshop on 9th June (details still to be finalised) to get some feedback from the end users of the targets.

And finally, for now, I’ll be on the Defra stand at the CIWM Futuresource conference on the 10th June, so do come and say hello!

The Landfill Tax was introduced in 1996 and has become the major driver behind most municipal waste reduction and recycling efforts.  There a currently two rates of Landfill Tax: the standard rate applies to ’active’ wastes – basically stuff that decays, and the lower rate is for ‘inactive’ wastes, which don’t.  The standard rate is currently £40 per tonne (and will rise to £74/tonne by 2014), while the lower rate is £2.50 per tonne and holding.

I shall resist the temptation to fill up my blog by nicking content from the consultation document, which is a surprisingly clear and easy read by the way, and simply note that HMT are looking to ‘modernise’ (i.e. change) the definition of a taxable disposal of waste at a landfill site, and the definiton of wastes that should qualify for the lower rate of tax.

It’s that second point which has brought the consultation to my desk, since slag and bottom ash from waste incineration are currently rated as ‘inert’ but may be reclassified as ‘active’ – which is going to make the economics of incineration a wee bit less attractive.   Which is, in one sense, good, since incineration (‘energy recovery’) is pretty much the last resort before landfilling, according to the Waste Framework Directive’s waste hierarchy.  On the other hand, it does come before landfilling, and I vaguely wonder whether the higher tax might make some incinerators uneconomic and lead to their feedstock just being landfilled as the cheaper option?

I have no evidence that it’s going to be a problem, I hasten to add.  It was just a thought that crossed my mind this evening after everyone who I might have asked had already gone back to their homes and lives.

Anyway, appraisal season is very nearly over, so I shall be back shortly with more tales from the recycling bank.  As it were.

Oral PQs are an odd sort of thing really.   A member asks a question, which the Minister is advised of  in advance and asks officials to prepare an answer for.  Easy peasy (ish).  However, there are then ten more minutes for other members to ask related questions, which means that we have to guess what issues might be raised and brief the Minister accordingly.  For something like waste, this can involve an awful lot of briefing because we have to try to ensure that the Minister is prepared for almost any eventuality – particularly in the Lords, as their Lordships have a reputation for being slightly less on-topic than the Commons, largely because Questions in the Lords are to the Government as a whole rather than for individual Departments as they are in the Commons.

So, a colleague and I have spent most of the past week putting together far more information than could ever be covered in ten minutes, and my colleague is now significantly more informed about rat infestions, disease and control than he ever thought he would be.

As it turned out, the only real left-field question was about moles, which thankfully the Minister handled with great aplomb – we’d have been stuffed if he’d asked for official assistance at that point; moles are not an issue one generally has to handle in waste managment…

Anyway, my overall impression of the House of Lords was pretty favourable; the atmosphere of the debate was professional and good-natured for the few minutes I attended.  I was rather disappointed by the lack of ermine though.