Minister for the environment Michael Meacher told letsrecycle.com that Mr Burns would be the director of the delivery unit which is being set up to coordinate the new waste delivery programme. As director, Mr Burns, who is currently based in London within walking distance of DEFRA's headquarters, will take charge of a Steering Committee which will work closely with DEFRA's policy team.
Mr Meacher said of the new unit: “Running the delivery of all this effectively is very, very important. It will help local authorities, many of whom have never seriously got their minds around high levels of recycling and have never thought about how to sell recycled products… This will really put the drivers behind them.”
Strong
In its response to the Strategy Unit report yesterday (07/05/03) the government said that Mr Burns had “a strong track record in project and programme management.” The new director already knows the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs very well and during his time at the Countryside Agency was involved in discussions with it about policy requirements.
Mr Burns will bring with him a number of skills which will be useful to the DEFRA job such as experience of setting targets, organising demonstration projects and drawing up national best practice guidelines.
Before taking over transport at the Countryside Agency, he used to be its head of market town initiatives. This programme aimed to bring a new lease of life to areas suffering from the economic effects of foot and mouth disease.
Mr Burns is also used to working within tight budgets and has experience of coordinating regional and national funding.
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