Oxfordshire Waste Partnership (OWP), a partnership of the county and district councils of Oxfordshire that aims to improve waste management services within the county, is to wind down operations following Oxfordshire County Council’s (OCC) decision to withdraw funding from the waste body from 2015.

Although responsibility for waste management is shared between the county council (which is responsible for waste disposal), and the district councils (which have responsibility for collecting household waste), since 2007, all councils with waste management responsibilities have operated as a statutory joint committee under the OWP, and are legally committed to work together on waste management issues.

For the past few years, councils in the partnership have topped the list for best performing authorities in terms of recycling as well as waste production, with OCC coming top of Resource’s Residual Waste League Table for 2011/2012 for waste disposal authorities, and OWP’s Vale of White Horse coming top of the complementary waste collection authority performance table. But it seems that it is this success that led to the OCC to decide to remove its funding.

Withdrawal of county council funds

On 4 December 2013, OCC wrote to the OWP Chairman, Councillor David Dodds, to inform him that it was to cease paying OWP contributions, totalling £123,714 (half of the OWP’s annual revenue budget), from March 2015.

A spokesperson for OCC explained the reasoning behind the decision: “The leadership provided by the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership led to the framework for investment in the collection and disposal of waste that has resulted in the county being one of the best-performing places in the country when it comes to recycling.

“The success of the partnership lies in the fact that coordination of work on recycling and waste minimisation is now very much ‘business as usual’ for all the local authorities.

“With the primary objective of the partnership met, the county council feels it is an appropriate time to redirect its funding for this non-statutory partnership to support other services provided by the county council.”

He added that the county council will continue to ‘work closely’ with the district and city councils to ‘ensure that the county’s success in recycling and waste minimisation continues into the future’.

A final decision on this budget proposal will be made when the council meets to consider the overall budget on 18 February.

OWP decision to close

However, at a meeting on 17 January 2014, members of the OWP met to ‘consider the implications for the future of the partnership’ and highlighted that the removal of OCC funding from 2015/16 would make the OWP budget unaffordable. Indeed, it was found that the budget would be overspent by some £91,000 by the end of the year.

In light of this, the body made the decision to close the OWP.

In a statement to Resource, a spokesperson for the OWP said: “In light of budget cuts, a recent meeting of Oxfordshire council leaders decided to wind down Oxfordshire Waste Partnership (OWP).

“OWP has been successful in taking recycling across the county from 30 per cent to a record 60 per cent, making Oxfordshire the highest recycler and lowest waste producer in the county.”

The decision comes just several months after the OCC retendered its environmental education services contract (in which the OWP provide waste reduction education to schools). However, due to the reduced OWP funding from 2015, the viability of the contract has been brought into question.

The OWP has also outlined concerns over whether the withdrawal of the OCC’s funds will actually provide the county council with savings (thought to be equivalent to 0.6 per cent to the county council’s current annual budget for waste management).

Indeed, it warned that the OCC would ‘still have to commit some funding and officer time to waste prevention measures, communications and to liaison with district councils’, which it argues, would be ‘more difficult without the strategic framework that OWP provides’.

Further, the OWP warned in the January meeting that as the OCC has a food waste treatment contract with minimum tonnage requirements, it is reliant ‘upon the commitment and good will of its district council partners’ to deliver the increasing capture rates. However, without OCC’s involvement with the OWP, councils will not have much incentive to do so, as previously they were paid a financial incentive to maximise food waste recycling. If minimum tonnages are not reached, the OCC is liable to pay fines ‘exceeding £100,000 as early as 2015’.

The formal decision to close OWP will be taken at the final partnership meeting on 4 April 2014, but the network of Oxfordshire voluntary groups, Community Action Groups, has expressed regret at the news.

A spokesperson from CAG told Resource: "Losing the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership is a blow, as it brought incredible success not just for Oxfordshire’s waste statistics but for community engagement in the county’s recycling and waste reduction processes as a whole. The OWP allowed Community Action Groups to engage directly with the county and district councils through shared events, joint campaigns and policy consultations, a crucial relationship for increasing community buy-in on waste issues and also shaping local authority strategy from a community level.

"The positive partnerships facilitated by the OWP will not disappear, however, and each member of the partnership will continue to carry on their excellent work. While the future of Oxfordshire’s action on waste reduction is uncertain the foundations are there for an effective and joined-up partnership between local authority and community which will continue to lead the way forward for many years to come."

Read more about the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership.