Blizzard calls for fairness on penalty notices

LARAC chair Joy Blizzard has called for local authorities to be able to deal with the public on a fairness agenda similar to that applied to the welfare state.

Ms Blizzard, who is chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee, which represents recycling officers in the UK, told letsrecycle.com, that there were strong concerns over the governments Deregulation Bill plans to reduce local authority powers to tackle people who contaminate recycling.

She reasoned that fairness should also apply to waste and recycling and questioned the stance taken by communities secretary Eric Pickles on penalty notices for contamination of recycling, and said that there was a still need to be able to take action in some circumstances.

We would all like to see contamination of materials for recycling reduced. Contamination caused by the actions of one household can mean that the good recycling work of the whole street is affected.

In terms of the welfare state, such as in housing, there is a fairness agenda, there you make your own contribution but there is a framework to work within if rules are broken.

Emphasising that local authority recycling officers view enforcement as a last resort and much prefer to offer encouragement and advice, she noted: When we want to get tough, it is on the very few.

Ms Blizzard continued: The most disappointing thing is that with Eric Pickles we seem to have someone who seems to be so anti-local government in a blanket fashion. Where is the evidence basis for those assertions that thousands of people are being fined for putting their bins in the wrong place?

Budgets

She warned that cost pressures were now being felt even more keenly in local authorities and predicted that more charging will be introduced for green waste collections as it is not a material which local authorities have to collect.

In the face of the spending cuts, Ms Blizzard also reasoned that communications work needed to continue and brought both financial and environmental benefits.

We have seen a trend towards communications budgets being cut. But, waste prevention campaigns, such as Love Food Hate Waste can help reduce costs. There is an opportunity for central government to support councils on reducing waste overall and quality and food waste collection both come into this. Food waste collections help improve dry waste quality and mean that there is a use for the food waste.

LARAC

Turning to LARAC, which hosts its annual conference in Nottingham on 16-17 October, (for details, visit: www.laracconference.org.uk), Ms Blizzard said she was looking forward to this years event.

LARAC is an organisation where most of the work is still done by volunteers and I think we provide a pretty professional service for our members and we punch above our weight.

The membership fee, she said, is still 380 for a year. For this a considerable amount is offered to members. For local authorities, how much would it take to get the expertise that we provide in the form of the advice we can give and our regional meetings, our responses to consultations, our lobbying abilities are there. Plus there is the annual 99 conference with two days accommodation, the news we provide and the Loop magazine.

Ms Blizzard added: Yes we have looked changing the charging structure, we have considered relating the fee to the size of councils but they do not fall into easy categories and we have decided to keep the structure as it is.

She will be chair until next January having agreed to serve an additional year in office.

Colin Kirkby, our executive officer is retiring in May 2014 and we have been planning for it. We are taking the opportunity to work out how best to spend our resources in terms of people. At our AGM in Nottingham, we will be able to talk to people about this. We are planning the next logical move for LARAC the beauty of LARAC is that it has volunteers but that brings with it the fragility of being a voluntary organisation. So having that constant somebody like Colin has been invaluable.