Councils will need to reduce their waste collection and disposal costs to help deliver efficiency savings worth £550 million a year in local government spending cuts by 2012-13, according to proposals in the Pre-Budget Report.

In an effort to make £11 billion a year of savings across the public sector by 2012-13, the Government has set out plans to “deliver services in a more effective way”.

The Pre-Budget Report also states that local authorities can reduce the burdens of inspection and reduce duplication and inefficiency between different tiers of local government to reduce costs.

Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee chair Joy Blizzard told MRW: “One of the ways we can save money is not to have to deal with the stuff in the first place. We need to see more funds poured into waste minimisation initiatives. They get a tiny amount of money compared to what we pay to our bankers.”

She said that the Government should give local authorities the tools to handle the waste and said that there might be more structural changes with more joint working between councils and joint procurements.

But she questioned where the savings would come from saying “are individuals prepared to go without waste collections?”

She joked: “If the RBS bonuses were paid into the public sector we probably could get more recycling officers.”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling also announced that the Government will be introducing a boiler scrappage scheme to help the environment and manufacturing industry (see MRW story). Other announcements by Darling included the establishment of Infrastructure UK, which will be tasked with helping major infrastructure projects, including waste. It will help to prioritise Government’s investment in infrastructure, identify and address major cross-cutting issues affecting UK infrastructure and improve the way the Government supports the delivery of infrastructure projects and programmes.

Budget 2009

Providing an update on progress made regarding measures outlined in earlier announcements by the Treasury, the Pre-Budget Report also explained that more than 100 responses were received to the department’s consultation on modernising landfill tax, which was launched as part of this year’s Budget.

The report states that the Government would make further discussions with landfill operators and environmental authorities on the proposals relating to what is a taxable disposal.

Other updates announced include the confirmation that half of the £10m fund for anaerobic digestion announced in Budget 2009 had now been allocated. The report also confirmed that the Government has pledged to work with retailers to aspire to a 70 per cent reduction of single-use carrier bags and progress will be reviewed in summer 2010.