The move brings an end to the process whereby councils' performance against targets known as National Indicators – three of which relate to waste – is critically evaluated by the Audit Commission and then published in reports and also made available to the public via the ‘Oneplace' website.
It is much more important for the public to know what their councils are doing than having thousands of hush-hush, unseen papers being sent back and forth between Whitehall bureaucrats and the Town Hall
Eric Pickles, communities secretary
Mr Pickles claimed that the move to end the CAA, which was originally mooted when the coalition government came to power, would save the Audit Commission £10 million and cut “significant” inspection costs for councils.
“In the face of the nation's £156 billion deficit, Central Government needs to stop the costly top-down monitoring that is engulfing councils and start trusting them to do what is right locally. Today I have instructed Town Hall watchdogs to stop tying the hands of council workers with unnecessary red tape and paperwork,” he said.
“It is much more important for the public to know what their councils are doing than having thousands of hush-hush, unseen papers being sent back and forth between Whitehall bureaucrats and the Town Hall,” he added.
Councils
However, the significance of the change for the waste and recycling work undertaken by councils was downplayed by Stephen Didsbury, head of waste and street services for the London borough of Bexley.
He explained that, while the CAA had brought an element of “competitiveness” between councils' as they looked to achieve good results under the assessment by achieving their goals, the actual targets to be reached under the National Indicators were generally set by councils themselves.
And, in terms of waste and recycling he noted that there were other, more cost-oriented factors, such as landfill tax, driving performance improvement.
“We have got so many other financial drivers,” he told letsrecycle.com, adding: “If we haven't got to do that work there are still good other reasons to stretch yourselves on the waste side.”
However, Mr Didsbury's noted that his council had been “very pleased” to receive a ‘green flag' when the Oneplace website launched in December 2009, in recognition of its strong performance on waste and recycling (see letsrecycle.com story).
This was echoed by Julia Barrett, head of the waste panel for local authority body ADEPT – formerly the County Surveyors Society – who said it was “nice” that her council, Cambridgeshire county council had also been recognised with a green flag for its waste performance.
But, she also noted that “because of the size of the waste budget, financial imperatives have been key”, and also highlighted the significance of the statutory targets in place for waste disposal authorities to divert waste from landfill.
National Indicators
While the CAA has been ended, the future of the National Indicator Set is less clear. Three of the 138 targets which councils could choose to use to assess their performance relate to waste – recycling and composting rate, a municipal waste to landfill rate and residual waste per household.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com today, a spokesman for the department of communities and local government explained that the status of the National Indicators was “under consideration”.
“They may be stopped, they may be changed,” he said, stressing that the focus on that consideration was “how best we can make them a localised thing”.
Localism
As part of the government's move towards localism , Mr Pickles has also said that he will encourage councils to publish a wide range of data online in an “open and standardised” format.
The government has said this should include “frontline service data” such as waste and recycling rates. However, one industry expert noted that many councils already make information on their recycling rate easily available on their websites.
The changes are also expected to include a ‘Decentralisation and Localism Bill', as outlined in last month's Queen's Speech, which, according to the government, will include proposals to give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue.
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