The scheme administrator will have a huge role in the government’s upcoming Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) reforms which will replace the current PRN system and give money to councils to pay for recycling work. Although not confirmed, its responsibilities are likely to include deciding how as much as £2.5 billion will be distributed for recycling work.
Now, the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), and the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment (INCPEN) have “come together to investigate if they can prepare a bid to establish” a new company which could apply to government to be the administrator.
Job
As part of the process, they advertised for a ‘head of bid submission’ earlier this year to support them.
The purpose of this role was to help ensure the bid “receives wide support – on merit – from stakeholders across the whole packaging value chain”; and to craft the widest possible coalition of supporters for the bid.
Responsibilities included delivering a fully developed, well-designed and stakeholder-supported set of proposals for EPR Scheme Administrator that meet all the criteria specified by the four UK governments.
Producers, government ministers, local authorities, recyclers and event organisers were all listed as “key audiences” to have on side.
Scheme administrator
When Defra consulted on the administrator role, it said that 62% of respondents indicated a preference for the administrator to be a not-for-profit sector-led organisation “run by those obligated to fund and deliver packaging EPR”.
Defra set out two options in the consultation: Option 1 would be a single scheme administrator; Option 2 would be a scheme administrator with compliance schemes.
The move by the three producer groups to take the lead could lead to some concerns from local authorities and recyclers/reprocessors, who may feel under-represented.
Finances
Last week, Paul Vanston, the chief executive of INCPEN, was speaking at the Outlook Conference where he set out the scale of challenges needed to get EPR rolled out by next year, including setting the scheme administrator.
Speaking on the scheme administrator he said: “It’s undecided what it will be, and we don’t know what this will be like, particularly with the four UK nations all needing to align.
“This group will also need to decide what is recyclable, have up to 250 staff, manage £2-3 billion a year and have a system to do that too. It will also be a not-for-profit. There is no organisation which exists and can do this. Alongside this it will also need to determine necessary costs producers pay, report performance to government and achieve targets.”
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