The investment pledged from the Scottish Executive in its Spending Review confirms a pledge made by finance minister Andy Kerr in an announcement made on September 12 2002.
The allocated funds will allow SEPA to take forward a number of important initiatives related to “protecting Scotland’s environment” and will allow SEPA to regulate waste management more critically.
The new resources will be used by SEPA to extend its work on the National Waste Strategy to include non-municipal waste, to improve waste data collection and establish a regulatory regime for the treatment and disposal of agriculture waste.
Deputy minister for the environment and rural development Allan Wilson said: “I am pleased to announce this substantial extra funding, which will allow SEPA to carry forward its role in better regulating waste management and disposal.”
The minister continued to say that the extra funding would also go towards “environmental justice politics by improving public access to environmental information in providing an online pollution inventory of emissions to air and water.”
The additional resources for SEPA totalling 11.2m over the three years covered by the Spending Review have been broken down as: 3.3million allocated for 2003 to 2004, 3.0million allocated for 2004 to 2005 and 4.9million have been allocated for 2005 to 2006.
The allocations are indicative at this stage as they are still to be formally approved by Parliament. The boost in funding will bring SEPA’s baseline allocations for 2003 to 2004 up to 29.16million.
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