The promised 'bonfire of the quangos' that is part of the Coalition Government's efficiency and cost-cutting drive has claimed another environmental victim, albeit a small one that will not be widely missed.
Business secretary Vince Cable has announced the abolition of the WEEE Advisory Body (WAB), which is a forum for figures involved in the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) to help steer government policy for the waste stream.
The board's members include representatives from electronics producers, retailers, producer compliance schemes, waste management firms, reprocessors and re-use organisations. The board will be wrapped up in the autumn.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said: “By bringing these functions back into Government we make their activities more accountable and can reduce the considerable administrative costs that they place on the taxpayer.”
Board members hope they will still be able to feed into policy development in the future through alternative avenues.
In a letter to stakeholders, a senior official, Mitchell Leimon, said that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) would now take "direct leadership" of work on WEEE, working with former WAB members and other stakeholders in a "committee or task group structure".
The letter said they would be looking to ensure any changes to the UK WEEE system required by the current reformulation of the WEEE Directive – including a possibly higher WEEE collection target – were introduced with a "minimum of disruption".
He added: "This work will include identifying gaps in the system, for example increasing the levels of small WEEE separately collected, raising the profile of the role the reuse sector can play in the system (building upon the WAB's work in developing the Reuse PAS 141) and increasing awareness of the options available to business end-users."
BIS has now earmarked for closure 17 of its quangos.
BIS said that the WAB and the three other bodies announced for the chop at the same time cost £8.62 million a year. But only the WAB's chairman, Peter Calliafas, was being paid for his work – at £5,000 a year; all its other members received travel expenses only, so it can hardly have been a burden on taxpayers.
The UK's WEEE system has been working smoothly and the household WEEE collection rate is increasing.
