WRAP enjoys 12% budget hike as remit broadens

Figures obtained by letsrecycle.com this week show that its budget for the new financial year, 2010/11, is £90.93 million, compared to £80.83 million in 2009/10. This means its budget has also risen by 54% compared to the £58.99 million awarded to the body in 2008/09.

The increase comes as WRAP officially becomes responsible for a larger workload, such as the business resource efficiency and industrial symbiosis programmes previously run as Envirowise and NISP respectively – 12 months after Defra decided to bring the programmes under its control (see letsrecycle.com story).

However, there is uncertainty over the extent to which WRAP might be affected by the £194 million of savings Defra last week revealed it aims to make over the next two financial years as public sector spending tightens.

Both WRAP and Defra have said it is too early to say exactly how, if at all, the Defra efficiency savings will impact on WRAP, although arms-length bodies have been highlighted as having a key role to play in cutting costs in areas such as administration and finance.

Funders

The WRAP budget figures reveal Defra retains its position as by far the most significant of its funders in 2010/11, providing 64.56%, or £58.7 million, of its total budget – a slight drop from the 69.07%, or £55.84 million, it gave it in 2009/10.

At the same time, an increased proportion of its funding is being provided by the Scottish Government, with the devolved administration injecting £16.8 million, or 18.48% of WRAP's 2010/11 budget, compared to £11.17 million, or 13.82%, in 2009/10.

This comes as WRAP has also been given the lead for managing all the Scottish Government's resource efficiency delivery programmes, under the banner 'Zero Waste Scotland' (see letsrecycle.com story).

Notable shares also come from the Welsh Assembly Government – around 7% of the total for both 2009/10 and 2010/11 – and from the Department for Energy and Climate Change, which provided £5.67 million, or 7.01% in 2009/10 and £4.5 million, or 4.95% in 2010/11.

And, both years also involve just less than 3% of the total being contributed by Advantage West Midlands, with WRAP having begun delivering a four-year market development programme for the regional development agency in 2008/09.

Savings

While last week's announcement of Defra efficiency savings raises the potential for WRAP's budget to be affected in some way, in terms of Defra's overall budget for 2009/10 – which was £3.19 billion – the £194 million is a relatively small figure.

At the same time, WRAP has already revealed it expects to make cuts as part of the move to single resource efficiency body (see letsrecycle.com story), and its chief executive, Liz Goodwin, said earlier this month that it was making savings from integrating services (see letsrecycle.com story).

However, Defra did state last week that, of the £100 million it aimed to save by 2012/13 in finance, human resources, ICT and similar areas, 85% would be made via its arms-length bodies.

And, at the time, the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, said: “Defra and its delivery bodies are committed to doing their bit to achieve these substantial and vital savings in public spending.

“We intend to make these savings in a way that will have the least possible impact on the people who rely on Defra and its agencies and on what we can achieve as a department, by finding more efficient and effective ways of working,” he added.