Trade union members of Amicus and the National Union of Journalists have drawn up a briefing document for John Healey, the economic secretary to the Treasury, prior to Amicus meeting with the MP today. Mr Healey was instrumental in the reforms to the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme that has seen funding levels cut by two thirds.
In light of the changes to the LTCS, Entrust announced its restructuring with the proposed redundancy of 19 of its 31 members of staff last week (see letsrecycle.com story). The company's turnover for this year is projected to be 1 million, a third of last year's level. However, the group of employees says Entrust has amassed reserves of 3.3 million in anticipation of the reforms and in case of complete closure of the LTCS.
In the document prepared for Mr Healey, the Entrust staff criticise the new structure and say there has been a lack of an open consultation or the increased transparency called for by several parties including Mr Healey himself.
The document says that the proposed changes will weaken the regulation of the LTCS. It says that changes will lead to increased self regulation by the industry with Entrust only taking part after funds have been allocated. It suggests this could mean more funds being claimed back from landfill companies by Customs & Excise and in turn the companies becoming less willing to participate in the scheme and environmental bodies losing funding.
Report
The report for Mr Healey from the Entrust employees claims that “In a typical month Entrust would request that between 15 and 20 individual projects (out of around 80) be abandoned or modified to bring them into compliance with the landfill tax regulations before any money had been spent.” It goes on to say that changes in the regulatory procedure could mean that there would be unnecessary risk to landfill site operators, who may not control environmental bodies, but face claw back of tax credit in the event of non-compliant expenditure.
The document adds: “Members fear this may significantly reduce industry confidence, which may, in turn, lead many environmental bodies to lose funding altogether.”
The paper argues that several positions to be made redundant in Entrust's restructuring, such as the on-going investigation teams and staff dealing with the Legacy Fund, do not have replacement systems to cover their work or see it to conclusion.
Confident
But, Entrust countered the claims. In a response to the document, Stephen Newton, spokesperson for Entrust, said: “Entrust is confident that the restructure will benefit stakeholders by providing a more flexible and productive service. We will continue to regulate to an excellent standard that will retain the confidence of all interested parties.”
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