Communities minister Bob Neill has defended the language and figures used by the government to back up its arguments on waste services and vowed to continue to intervene in what he said was a legitimate debate.
Mr Neill told the CIWM annual conference today (June 15), that, while ministers were not telling councils how to run collections, they did have a view and would air that opinion.
He compared this favourably to the previous Labour administration, which he claimed had been pushing councils towards running their collections in a certain way, such as by charging for services.
Claiming this was contrary to the localism agenda, he said: Ministers arent compelling people to move to a particular policy but do have a view.
Our position is more localised than the previous approach. Councils will choose the appropriate approach and so we think incentives are the appropriate approach
Mr Neill claimed that, under the Labour government, it was getting to the stage of a Henry Ford approach any colour as long as its black which wasnt promoting localism by moving towards telling them what to do.
Choice of language
At todays event, the minister came under fire from councils for the governments choice of language in the lead up to yesterdays publication of the Waste Review.
Jane Robertson of Cambridge city council questioned ministers repeated use of 120 as the average monthly council tax bill to justify calls for more frequent waste collections. She said the actual cost of waste services was a small part of this – 60 a year in her councils case.
Defending the use of the 120 figure, Mr Neill said: Its the local service tax, in effect. People are getting a product so its perfectly reasonable for ministers to say what the price of the product is.
I agree it doesnt all go on waste but when youre specialised in an area for many people 120 a month is a lot of money and many people who dont use other services the council may provide refuse collection is the most obvious service you get.
Fines
The governments focus on fines in the Review (see letsrecycle.com story) came under particular scrutiny, with one local authority officer claiming that while 20 million bins were emptied last year, only 5,000 fines were handed out.
The officer asked: Now youre in government do you understand the damage that big political headlines can make in terms of public confidence in authorities services and how that transfers into attitudes towards recycling?
In response, Mr Neill said: I will use strong language about what I think are appropriate things.”
He added: I do understand the position of a lot of people who are involved in the business but you need to stand back and think about how it appears to the recipient of the service and thats why I think its a legitimate debate.
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