Concerns about whether it will be able to properly regulate the new hazardous waste regulations have come because the rules will require a considerable increase in Agency involvement. Producers of hazardous waste will have to be regulated and many more wastes, from batteries, single use cameras to paint are likely to come under the controls.
As a result of the Government's Spending Review 2002 (SR2002), the Environment Agency will see increases in some areas of its budgets, including more money available for flood defence over the next three years and investment in information technology to support regulatory work.
River basins
This week the Environment Agency Board discussed the Agency's corporate plans for 2003-06. Proposed budgets will allow for implementation of the Water Framework Directive to move forward next year to ensure future improvements in the environmental sustainability of river basins. And, said the agency, other areas will also benefit, such as fisheries, as more people are attracted into fishing as a sport.
The Agency says that it is committed to delivering in excess of 16m through efficiency measures during 2003-4. Nevertheless, the impact of the proposed budgets on inspection and enforcement work will need to be carefully considered, and the Agency will only agree final budgets in February once smarter ways of inspecting and enforcement have been explored to keep reductions in these areas to a minimum.
The Chairman of the Agency Board, Sir John Harman said: “The Agency will agree final budgets in February. We welcome the huge range of environmental improvement work that the increase in our overall budget to 800m will enable us to deliver. But the pressure on our primarily grant-in-aid funded environmental protection work – regulating pollution to land, air and water – means that we will have to search for smarter ways of regulating.
Flytipping
“Even with improved efficiency, it is likely that we will be unable to maintain some of our inspection and enforcement work and we will be unable to increase our efforts to help stem the rising tide of flytipping that higher costs of landfill may bring. The Board has asked the staff to explore ways to make the limited funds go as far as possible and report to our February meeting what the impacts on services will be.”
The Environment Agency's overall grant-in-aid settlement for 2003-4 is pegged at the level announced in the SR2000 settlement at 111.4 million. This provides a cash increase of 1 million over the allocation for the current year 2002-03.
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