WRAP is set to go ahead with swingeing cuts across its programmes, after receiving confirmation from Defra today that it must cut its spending by 30%.

As part of Defra's Budget Settlement for 2008/09, the Waste and Resources Action Programme has been told its Defra funding will reduce to £43.22 million.

This includes £40.22 million funding for WRAP's programmes, £3 million in capital spending and the total includes WRAP's Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) programme funding.

Last year WRAP had £59.3 million of Defra funding, including £9.7 million of BREW funding.

Defra is putting the squeeze on its recycling development organisation as the Department seeks cuts in its own Budget to cover a £300 million hole (see letsrecycle.com story).

After WRAP made 31 redundant earlier this month, job cuts are now thought likely across all levels of the organisation. It had hoped its budget cuts would be closer to 25%, but had anticipated an extra 5% cut.

In a statement reacting to Defra's budget confirmation, a spokeswoman for the Banbury-based organisation said: "WRAP has received its final budget allocation from Defra for 2008/09, which confirms a 30% reduction compared to the current year. While the cut in funding is disappointing, it is in line with our expections, which allowed for a 25% cut with an additional 5 % window."

The WRAP spokeswoman went on: "The final budget of £43.2m remains a substantial sum with which we will deliver our important and stretching work programme geared to help lessen the impact of climate change, maximise resource efficiency and help deliver Defra's Waste Strategy.

"It's too early to give any more detail at this stage, but we will review our priority areas as before and provide further information shortly," she added.

Councils are concerned that much of their efforts to promote home composting will not count towards their landfill targets because of expected cuts to WRAP research

Funding for WRAP from devolved administrations - last year amounting to £7.7 million from Scotland, £1.6 million from Wales and £800,000 from Northern Ireland - is unaffected by the Defra Budget announcements.

Cuts

Although it has not yet released its next Business Plan detailing its intentions for 2008/09, WRAP has already confirmed that areas affected by its budget cuts will include its communications work and the home composting programme.

And, it is already thought that campaign work such as national television advertising could be restricted.

Local authorities are unhappy about the anticipated cancellation of WRAP's work to develop a model that would allow "millions" of tonnes of waste diversion from home composting activities counting towards landfill allowances (see letsrecycle.com story).

The principal waste analyst who led the work, Dr Julian Parfitt, has now left WRAP to join social enterprise company ECT Recycling.

NISP

Another organisation which is having its budget cut is the industry networking organisation NISP - the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme.

NISP is also funded by Defra's BREW Programme, and has had staggered increases in its government budget over the last three years from £2.8 million in its first year up to eight million in the current financial year to April 2008.

While it has a smaller budget than WRAP it has claimed massive environmental benefits from its work, including a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of two million tonnes, a drop in virgin material use of 5.24 million tonnes and the diversion from landfill of 2.95 million tonnes of material.

However, full break-downs of how this has been achieved is not readily available on the NISP website.

It is not yet clear what funding NISP and other BREW-funded projects will have available after April.