The report is being prepared as part of a review of the Agency’s environmental protection charges and lays out the fees charged to register packaging producers and accredit recyclers and exporters of packaging waste.
| Table – Forecast EA costs for packaging producer responsibility 2006/07: |
||
| Cost (thousands) |
% of total costs | |
| Service delivery costs: | 3,043 | 74% |
| Direct service delivery |
|
49% |
| Basic staff salaries | 1,418 | |
| National Insurance | 132 | |
| Pensions | 213 | |
| Travel & subsistence | 152 | |
| Training and equipment | 106 | |
| Direct services: | 1,022 | 25% |
| Staff | 683 | |
| IT | 260 | |
| Other costs (e.g. vehicles, national laboratory) |
79 | |
| Policy and process costs: |
419 | 10% |
| Regulatory policy | 204 | |
| Process management | 215 | |
| Corporate Services: | 655 | 16% |
| Head office staff | 576 | |
| Other costs (e.g. research, audit, exchequer service and national purchasing) |
79 | |
| Total annual cost forecast for 2006/07 | 4,117 | 100% |
It also lays out a forecast of how the Agency plans to spend this income in 2006/07.
It includes just over £3 million for actual service delivery, but also some 419,000 for developing policy and 576,000 goes on head office staff including chief executive Barbara Young.
The costs relate to the packaging waste recovery note (PRN) system, through which packaging producers carry out their legal duty to fund UK recycling. The Agency picks up over £3.2 million from companies in the packaging chain that have this legal duty.
Remaining income comes from accrediting packaging waste recyclers and exporters, who once accredited can sell recycling evidence to the packaging producers – evidence known as packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs), which show the producers have carried out their legal recycling duties.
“Ring-fenced”
The draft report being assembled for the Environmental Protection Charges Review Team seeks to justify the Agency’s costs in administering the system. It insists that income from charges are ring-fenced and “can be spent only on the individual functions to which they relate”.
The Agency, which has received criticism behind the scenes for the current climate of uncertainty surrounding the PRN system (see letsrecycle.com story), is currently engaged in a cost-cutting campaign tasked with shaving £25 million from its overall environmental protection budget.
As part of this, the central unit that handles packaging producer responsibility, known as the National Waste Registration Unit, is being transferred to Sheffield with London operations ending by April.
The Agency said it had so far absorbed extra costs in terms of wage bill increases over the past six years.
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