And, a variety of views have been aired by compliance schemes including a warning from Valpak that the two stage data system may need to be amended.
At present reckoning, there is apparently more WEEE Evidence available than anticipated and this could mean some councils losing out on receiving payment for their WEEE. However, with an extra two weeks granted by BERR and the environmental agencies for reconciliation of data, there are high hopes that the figures will by mid-May be more in alignment.
If there were to be a significant surplus of Evidence available on the Settlement Exchange this could mean that some approved authorised treatment facilities would not get paid, theref would be an overall downward pressure on the price of evidence and the most expensive evidence would not sell.
Some of the more expensive evidence is expected to come from local authorities who are not aligned with the schemes and may be pressing for too much money for their Evidence or facing the need to charge more because of short-term costs for 2007.
Figures given to the Environment Agency and its counterparts across the UK are used as the basis for the tonnage collected. But the evidence is generated by treatment facilities and exporters processing the WEEE.
Protocols
Various reasons for the discrepancies in the data between the two have emerged. These could include confusion over protocols with one party using actual weights and the other using protocols. For mixed WEEE the tonnage has to be reduced by 14% under the protocol and this may not always have happened on both sides, partly because some collection sites may feel they have sorted the WEEE very well.
Unfortunate
A spokesman for Valpak said: “It is unfortunate that there is a delay. We are glad though that the government has come out with a clear statement as to how they deal with the delay and that they have allowed a corresponding extension to the deadline.
“However, we have always said that the way the two collection system is set up – as treatment and collection – was always going to be difficult to manage because of issues surrounding protocols, data errors, rejected material and other factors all of which put a high level of uncertainty into the data. Possibly it means we should consider amendments to the systems and maybe obligations should be based on evidence available on the settlement centre.”
Surplus
Phil Conran, a member of the WEEE Advisory Board and who runs Biffa's WEEE scheme, said: “Whilst I am disappointed at the delay this imposes on the settlement process, it is right that efforts are made to ensure that the two sets of data broadly equate and I believe BERR and the Agencies have taken the right decision.
“A surplus would lead to unrecoverable costs for 2007 which in turn would completely undermine confidence amongst collection and treatment stakeholders for the future. However, I would urge this not to be seen as an opportunity to profiteer as this will cause evidence prices to spiral beyond market tolerance and ultimately lead to a collapse in the system.”
First time
Teething problems for the system were expected, said Philip Morton, chief executive of the Repic compliance scheme. Dr Morton said: “It's the first time the system has been tested so it was bound to have had some teething problems. We are glad the government is taking the sensible approach and taking a step back to see where the anomalies in the data lie. We look forward to hearing the outcome.”
Barry van Danzig, chief executive of Wastepack which operates the Electrolink scheme said: “This is the first time this has been done and I am not at all surprised there are some initial difficulties. It took some years of work by all parties to get the packaging data correct.” Mr Van Danzig added that he thought the Settlement Centre was doing an “excellent job”.
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