Since 1 April 2007 the Waste and Resources Action Programme has bought technical services from Resource Futures at a total cost of £1.2 million
Dan Norris
Resource Futures, which had a turnover of £3 million in 2008/09 and employs over 50 staff, has received £1.2 million in business from WRAP since April 2007.
This is in addition to a further £137,845 of research commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs into waste growth and composition.
The revelation came in a recent parliamentary written answer from recycling minister Dan Norris ahead of WRAP's annual general meeting in London tomorrow (November 3) – in which the resource efficiency body is expected to promote cutting waste as a way to save money. The minister was replying to Caroline Spelman MP, Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
Mr Norris said: “Since 1 April 2007 the Waste and Resources Action Programme has bought technical services from Resource Futures at a total cost of £1.2 million. These services cover a range of topics, including work with local authorities, the third sector and on evaluating our programmes.”
He added: “Defra's Waste and Resources Evidence Programme has bought technical services from Resource Futures at a total cost of £137,845. The research covers waste growth and the composition of municipal waste.”
Relationship
Resource Futures has been trading since March 2006 and offers services ranging from communications campaigns to waste composition analysis. It has publicly acknowledged that it has developed a “strong relationship” with bodies including Defra and WRAP and counts several former WRAP employees amongst its staff.
Employees to have left WRAP and join Resource Futures include communications director Fridey Cordingley, the former head of WRAP's Recycle Now Campaign, and research and technical director Dr Julian Parfitt, former principal analyst at WRAP.
Ray Georgeson, who was formerly policy director for WRAP, is also a non-executive director on Resource Future's board.
And, this appears to be a two-way relationship, with WRAP taking on former Resource Futures worker Michael Jonas as its Recycle at Work adviser for Yorkshire and Humber.
WRAP is currently merging with six other resource efficiency bodies to form a super delivery body from April 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story).
WRAP
Responding to the revelations, WRAP explained that it used one of three processes to award contracts, with larger contracts either advertised publicly on its website for anyone to bid for, or put out to the body's 20 frameworks of contractors in accordance with the rules of the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
The organisation stressed that its main priority was “always value for money” and that, when awarded, these contract awards were made available to view by the OJEU, although it did not publish a list itself.
The organisation added that for contracts worth less than £5,000 it sometimes also approached certain organisations on the basis of location and/or expertise.
Resource Futures
For its part, Resource Futures said that it worked for a wide number of clients and that since early 2007, it had delivered 86 contracts for WRAP which represented 14% of the companies business. It stressed that it had originally bid for 156 contracts and lost 45%. It explained that it was one of WRAP's 382 framework contractors.
The organisation's chief executive, Jane Stephenson, explained that: “This work has been tendered for in accordance with WRAP's procurement procedures and like any other contractor sometimes we are successful and sometimes we are not.”
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