WRAP denies telling councils to ‘cut services’

WRAP also took issue with being called a bin quango by Mr Pickles, describing the tag as wrong and misleading.

Writing in the Daily Mail this morning, Mr Pickles said: Fortnightly collections werent a local choice Labour politicians and Whitehall pen-pushers cajoled and bullied councils into cutting collections. The governments bin quango, WRAP, told councils to make the cuts after local elections to avoid democratic opposition.”

Misleading

The statement continued: It is wrong and misleading to describe WRAP as a bin quango. Collections advice to councils is only a small part of what we do, taking up around just 4.5% of our Defra funding. Most of what we do is resource efficiency, helping businesses, councils and individuals reduce waste and cut costs.

It is also important to say that WRAP is not an agent of government. We were deliberately set up as an independent organisation with an independent board, basing our views on independent research.

However, WRAP was pleased with the department for local governments allocation announcements today for its 250 waste collection funding. In a statement it said: The UK has made great progress with recycling over the past decade. We were very keen that nothing should damage that progress, so we were pleased to see the emphasis on recycling and food waste collections in todays announcement. We will be happy to work with local authorities to provide them with optional advice on how best to implement their schemes.

Earlier today Mr Pickles DCLG colleague, under-secretary of state Brandon Lewis, also commented on the role of WRAP with the weekly collection fund, highlighting how they had been actively involved in the process.

He continued: They are an autonomous quango. We have made it clear so that they know what we expect from local authorities and where DCLG is coming from, that people want their rubbish collected.

Mr Lewis said: They (WRAP) have been on the panel with DCLG. They are a Defra body and they know very much where we are coming from and the DCLG secretary of state has worked with the Defra secretary of state on this.