Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 28
Eighteenth Report - Government actions to combat waste crime
Published 19 Oct 2022
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Government actions to combat waste crime All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Defra told us it has invested in the development of apps to make reporting of fly- tipping, such as on private land, to local authorities easier.103 Defra said it is developing a fly-tipping toolkit to share best practice, the first element of which relates to putting together robust cases for magistrates courts that demonstrate the impact of fly-tipping.104 The development of a fly-tipping toolkit was an action set out in the 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy.105 Defra also told us it had invited local authorities it knew were leading on fly-tipping or had a significant fly-tipping issue to apply for up to £50,000 each for projects to trial approaches and interventions to prevent or address fly-tipping.106 We have previously commented on the burden on local authorities of bidding for funding pots, absorbing time and resource with no guarantee they will be successful; this is particularly true for small, short-duration grants.107 In this case six authorities worked on bids that were unsuccessful. Only three of the 11 successful authorities were outside London and the 95 GWC0004 (NFU England and Wales) 96 C&AG’s Report, para 3 97 GWC0004 (NFU England and Wales) 98 Defra, Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse, September 2019, paras 1.1 and 2.6 99 Defra, Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse: Part 1A – Effective enforcement, February 2022, para 11B1 and footnote 1 100 C&AG’s Report, paras 1.15, 2.5, 3.15 101 Qq 30, 33, 43; Defra, ENV24 – Fly tipping incidents and actions taken in England, statistical dataset, December 2021 102 GWC0001 (Farrell, Dixon, Tilley) 103 Q 2 104 Qq 31–32; C&AG’s report, Figure 21 105 C&AG’s report, Figure 21 106 Qq 35–37; Letter from Defra’s Permanent Secretary to PAC Chair, sent 29 June 2022 107 Local Government Finance System: Overview and Challenges, Thirty-Fourth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 646, February 2022, conclusion 7 and paras 26–27; Local economic growth, Fifty Report of Session 2022–23, HC 252, June 2022, paras 5 and 6 Government
From: Public Accounts Committee, Eighteenth Report - Government actions to combat waste crime (HC 33), 19 October 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 December 2022 (deadline 19 December 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with the Committee's recommendations on waste crime, listing most as "implemented" and giving target dates for others.
- On the Resources and Waste Strategy, the government agrees with the recommendation, while noting that "some delivery has been slower than originally planned"; it lists planned reforms including digital waste tracking and reform of the waste carriers, brokers and dealers' regime, both "planned for 2024".
- On landfill tax, the government agrees and says the Landfill Tax Review would consider the structure of the tax and "the impacts of any proposed changes to this on waste crime"; HMRC is to report on its approach to investigations, with a target date of December 2022.
- On sanctions, the government agrees and notes that the Sentencing Council is responsible for sentencing guidance and the courts make "independent decisions"; the department "intends to conduct new research" into enforcement of small scale fly-tipping, "anticipated to commence in early 2023".
- On the digital waste tracking contract, the government agrees; it is "anticipated that the contract will be let by the end of 2022" and the department "will write to inform the Committee" when this happens.