Executive Summary
Yesterday evening (26 October) Defra said that it had removed the Executive Summary from its report on the consultation responses because of an “error”. There are thought to be at least two errors which have been found so far. The document had been published alongside the Consistency proposals.
Defra explained that the error had been made in the Executive Summary of the report which had been produced by Traverse, a “third party consultancy”. The consultation had sought views from local authorities and others across the waste sector and beyond on topics around consistency.
Discrepancy
On the error it said: “This caused a discrepancy between the Executive Summary and the main body of the report. We have, therefore, temporarily removed the Executive Summary from this report (while we assess it further for potential errors) to avoid all possibility of a reoccurrence.”
The error identified is around caddy liners and whether how many respondents thought they should be free or not; the consultation results document is hard to read and is not clear on this point.
The department says that: “An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated in the Executive Summary that, ‘two thirds of respondents (65%) disagree with the proposal to provide caddy liners and one quarter (24%) express support’.”
But Defra has not yet clarified what the respondents actually thought about liners and this is difficult to determine from the document. Caddy liners are a big area of discussion in terms of funding around future mandatory food waste collections.
A further mistake involves anaerobic digestion.
Full report
Defra, in its statement last night, moved to reassure all those concerned with the consistency proposals that the policy decisions taken had actually been made using the full report rather than the Executive Summary. But, such is the strength of its concerns that it has to redact the Executive Summary while it is checked for further errors.
“Policy decisions announced in the Simpler Recycling consultation response, published on 21 October 2023, are unaffected by this error,” the department emphasises.
Quality assurance
The report itself says that it “went through a quality assurance process, where it was read through and thoroughly checked for quality and consistency, with updates and changes made where necessary.” Quality assurance was by Olivier Boelman of Traverse.
The report includes contact details for Traverse but the phone number given rings unavailable. It is thought that Traverse was the trading name for the Office for Public Management, company number 02343617, which went into liquidation earlier this year.
Useful links
Consultation responses with Executive Summary redacted
Letsrecycle.com report on Consistency proposals
To find out more about residual waste collections, visit the Collection Conference, taking place on 15 November, to book your ticket please click here.
This says everything you need to know about Defra tbh…