The legal requirement for councils in two-tier local authority areas to work together to produce waste management strategies looks set to be abolished in the governments waste review.
At present, councils in two-tier authority areas are required to produce a Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy (JMWMS) under the Waste and Emissions Trading Act 2003.
The JMWMS has to set out councils plans for municipal waste in their area, and they are also expected to consult on any policies they formulate to support the strategy, to keep these under review, and to set them out in a statement.
The strategy must then be publicised and submitted to government.
There are a few performance-related exemptions which mean that some local authorities do not have to draw up a strategy.
However, two of the key exemptions relating to recycling performance and meeting more general performance goals are no longer valid with the end of statutory recycling targets and the comprehensive area assessment respectively.
With exemptions also linked to councils’ performance against their Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) goals, the abolition of the LATS system which is expected as part of the waste review (see letsrecycle.com story) would also end the validity of another exemption.
The situation has prompted Defra to review the requirement for the strategies to be produced at all. And, it is also looking at the option of introducing new exemptions, making the JMWMS a legal duty for all councils or removing the legal requirement altogether and instead just encouraging local authorities to produce such a strategy.
The debate over JMWMSs was raised in a letter sent to council chief executives in January 2011, Defra indicated its preference for the removing the legal requirement and instead strongly promoting them through guidance which would set out the benefits of producing a JMWMS in the context of joint-working.
And, letsrecycle.com now understands the statutory duty will be removed as part of the waste review, which is expected to be published next month.
Localism
Explaining why it favours the removal of any legal requirement in the letter, Defra specifically referred to the other two options it was considering for JMWMS having consequences contrary to the governments localism aims.
To make JMWMS a duty for all tier two authorities would increase burdens on local authorities by applying the duty to those which are currently exempt, it said. This would conflict with the governments stated aim of the decentralisation of power from the centre, including the removal of statutory impositions.
The department added that similar arguments went against introducing new exemptions, explaining that, with the scrapping of the national indicator set system, there was little scope for suggesting replacement exemptions.
Defra explained that it planned to repeal the statutory need to produce a JMWMS using section 6 of the Local Government Act 2000, which allows the Secretary of State to make changes to legal requirements for councils to produce subject-specific plans.
Support
Council support for any move to abolish the legal requirement to produce a JMWMS was made clear in comments made by the West London Waste Authority (WLWA) in relation to the Defra review of the strategies.
In a letter drafted to Defra, the WLWA has recently noted that its established contracts and requirements to work according to other strategies mean there is little point in procuring another full-scale JMWMS and associated documents.
But it also stresses the value of partnership working between councils and says that, even if the legal requirement were removed, it would still produce a concise, high-level strategic document. At the same time, each member authority would produce their own working plan to set out how they will meet those strategic aims.
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