Entrust grilled by Public Accounts Committee

Entrust was hauled before the Public Accounts Committee following the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Environment sub-committee recommendation in April that the Public Accounts Committee carry out an investigation into Entrust's work.

The Committee summoned Entrust chairman, Lord Cranbrook and joint acting chief executives Mike Whiting and Neil Carrigan to appear before it. Richard Broadbent, chairman of HM Customs and Excise and Mr Brian Glicksman of HM Treasury were also questioned.

The Public Accounts Committee raised several issues including the complexity of the scheme, its transparency and whether the scheme is being run as efficiently as possible. Entrust's “terms of approval” with Customs & Excise which governs how it operates was also under question.

Although Entrust has been given a new fixed term service agreement until 2004, the future of the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme is still unclear. Mr Broadbent made it clear that Entrust had not been given a three-year contact and that the terms mean that the agreement could be terminated at any time. But any changes would not be immediate as under the agreement Entrust has a 12 month termination notice.

The Committee asked whether the scheme would be improved if it was simplified. Mr Brian Glicksman, treasury officer of accounts at the HM Treasury, said that the complex nature of the scheme meant that it is difficult to establish its value for money and added that it was partly a result of this that the government was undertaking a review of the scheme.

He said: “The government is responsible for the value for money of the scheme. The process will ensure that the scheme is looked at and reviewed.”

Mr Broadbent said that he did not think the scheme's level of success could have been achieved by a less complicated scheme. But he admitted that the complexity was created by a large number of different environmental bodies and so you could not always be exactly sure who was doing what.

Conflict

But despite this complex nature, when asked about fraud and inequality, Mr Broadbent said that there was no problem with fraud and that there were only two known cases and these were under investigation. But he did admit that there was a potential of conflict of interest.

Questions were also asked about the level of non compliance and the problems with schemes being given additional funding when they were not fully compliant on projects that they were running.

Lord Cranbrook told the committee that there had not been many cases where environmental bodies had been none compliant and that there had only been 10 enforced resignations. He said: “We intervene when there is deliberate misconduct, where it is not deliberate we try and help.”

But Lord Cranbrook said that they did not have any powers to deal with non-compliance and that “their hands were tied”. He added that they were in discussions with Customs & Excise about this.

Mr Broadbent said that Entrust could be given additional powers and that there were a number of possibilities that they were currently looking at.

Defending the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, Lord Cranbrook said that some of the problems had been created by its rapid growth. “The scheme is worth preserving and is larger than originally envisaged. The scheme has withdrawn an enormous amount of waste from the waste stream and has led to some unprecedented partnerships between the public, private and voluntary sectors.”