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front of pipe homepage > DEFRA waste PFI cover-up (2007)

DEFRA have so far ignored the PFI criteria which were supposed to protect the public from unsuitable PFI deals. DEFRA funded and organised a rigged consultation in 2005 but disclaims any responsibility. See also the 2005 evidence of the PFI criteria being flaunted, the 2006 Investigation into the waste PFI in Cambridgeshire (150k pdf file), the 2007 list of tricks used by Cambridgeshire Council and the 2007 analysis of misleading information given by the Council to DEFRA .

PFI is an obstacle to sustainable waste management
The case of Cambridgeshire shows how easily DEFRA and Councils can use the pretence of commercial confidentiality with waste PFIs to exclude the public from any meaningful involvement and to perpetuate dependence on disposal to land and air as an alternative to sustainable waste management. The absence of effective local or national scrutiny of at least some waste PFIs suggest that the public funds spent on procuring or running these schemes do not represent best value. HM Treasury advice shows that this PFI is "inappropriate" and is "unlikely to offer value for money". The substitution of private business interests in place of public accountability is a breakdown of public service, responsible for massive economic and ecological damage as the nation becomes locked into decades of unsustainable resource management.

20th Sept 05
Attended a "waste strategy consultation event" in Cambridge which we were told was funded by the Waste Implementation Programme of DEFRA and run by consultants appointed by DEFRA. There had been no publicity in the local media and so only 10 consultees were there. Some of the consultees were Council employees. Cambridge Friends of the Earth, CamAIR and Cambridge University had not been invited. There was no opportunity to discuss waste strategy and one one option (MBT) was offered as a possible residual waste solution. When I asked if other options could be discussed I was told there would be a further opportunity for consultation when planning permission was applied for. The report of the consultation took over 6 months to produce, was not sent to consultees and contained just 200 words of "findings" which bore scant relation to the discussion at our event. Unreasonable for DEFRA to appoint and fund consultation work without showing interest in the quality of the work.

22nd Sept 05
Emailed Ben Bradshaw "You may be interested to know that DEFRA has sponsored a 'public consultation' in Cambridgeshire which has gone horribly wrong." I asked for his help in ensuring "that the remaining five consultation events in the region are fair and valid". No improvement was made to the remaining events.

23rd Sept 05
Spoke with and emailed Oluwole Ajibola, of the Funding & Scrutiny Team, DEFRA Waste Implementation Programme. I asked to speak with the funders of the consultation events so that the remaining events could be improved. I wrote that the PFI criteria were apparently not being met. He said he did not know who I should speak with, then he emailed promising to reply fully after talking with colleagues. I never heard from him again and the remaining consultation events proceeded unimproved. Unreasonable for DEFRA to ignore an opportunity to improve the subsequent consultation events.

28th Oct 05 Reply for Ben Bradshaw by Dominic Jackson DEFRA. "I feel it is for Ms Sutton [DEFRA consultant] to respond to your specific concerns about" the consultation meeting. “Neither DEFRA nor ministers intervene with local planning decisions”. Unreasonable for DEFRA as client to disregard what their own consultants do on their behalf. Unreasonable to disregard their considerable "intervention" in County waste planning including setting up unacceptable consultations. 

1st Nov 05
Emailed complaint to Ben Bradshaw about ministers’ criteria for PFI. Provided link to detailed criticisms on website, http://www.sdinnovation.co.uk/cambsonhold.html.

14th Nov 05 Dominic Jackson, DEFRA informs me of investigation by Ron Bates, Head of Funding and Scrutiny, Waste Implementation Programme. Unreasonable for DEFRA to have failed to this day to carry out that investigation.

15th March 06 Wrote my own investigation on behalf of DEFRA and emailed to Dominic Jackson. No reply received from DEFRA. Unreasonable to ignore comprehensive evidence of non-compliance with ministers' PFI criteria.

16th March 06
Email to Ben Bradshaw to send my investigation and check he was aware of DEFRA’s reply on his behalf. No response received. Unreasonable for a minister to ignore such comprehensive evidence of non-compliance with ministers' PFI criteria.

22nd March 06
Follow-up to Neil Thornton, Director Environment Quality and Waste DEFRA. Unreasonable for DEFRA management to allow a specific complaint about PFI criteria to be disregarded.

4th April 06
Reply from Mark Plowright, Waste Implementation Programme. Despite my complaint being clearly about PFI criteria, he claimed it was “primarily concerned with local issues” and was forwarded to Cambs County. Unreasonable since the responsibility for oversight of PFI criteria must remain with government. Unreasonable to claim that the County's reply to me "addressed all my points" without considering my reply to Cambs which had been copied to Ron Bates at DEFRA, who was the named individual supposed to "investigate matters". My reply to Cambs County (which was copied to Ron Bates at the time) makes it clear that my points were not addressed.

4th April 07
I write to Neil Thornton (Director of Environmental Quality and Waste) at DEFRA asking for DEFRA to accept responsibility for their own PFI criteria and to investigate Cambs County Council's failure to meet the criteria.

"Dear Mr Thornton
Thank you for the letter of April 4th 2006 in which Mark Plowright replies on your behalf. I apologise for the delay in responding due to moving house and my health. If I may, I would like to pursue my unresolved complaint of 1st November 2005 about the need for DEFRA to examine whether Cambridgeshire County Council's PFI process meets DEFRA's PFI criteria. I feel it is unreasonable for questions about PFI criteria to be referred first to your consultants and then to Cambridgeshire County Council. The PFI criteria are clearly DEFRA's responsibility and should not be dismissed if public accountability and value for money are to be protected.

Given DEFRA's extensive behind-the-scenes involvement in Cambridgeshire's waste management decisions it is particularly worrying that my complaint about PFI criteria has twice been dismissed on the grounds that "neither DEFRA nor ministers intervene with local planning decisions".

Please will you ensure there is now an urgent full investigation of Cambridgeshire County Council's fulfillment of the PFI criteria. In determining who is to carry out this investigation please would you take into account the imbalance between the Waste Implementation Programme's combined functions of "funding and scrutiny". It is not at all clear, given the scrutiny effort I have seen, that the WIP are sufficiently independent and rigorous to preserve public confidence in DEFRA's abilities. When there is an investigation I would be glad of the opportunity to present further evidence of PFI criteria failure in Cambridgeshire, which has come to light over the past year.

There is an opportunity to act now before DEFRA are due to approve the County's 'final business case' in May 2007 (see http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/environment/waste/about/future/PFI+project+timetable.htm). I am willing to discuss any of these issues and to forward any of the correspondence referred to. Please find attached my personal investigation into the PFI criteria (undertaken in the absence of the promised DEFRA investigation) which was sent to DEFRA but not acted upon over the past year. Please find inserted below a list of relevant correspondence and a copy of my letter to Cambridgeshire County Council which DEFRA failed to consider when dismissing my complaint after I wrote to you previously.
Yours sincerely
James Greyson"

4th May 2007
Reminder to Mr Thornton and suggestion that the entire national waste PFI programme is fatally flawed due to not meeting Treasury preconditions for viable PFI.

"Dear Mr Thornton
Congratulations on your promotion to managing SCP as well as waste. This specific change at DEFRA was recommendation number 7.3(v) in my investigation report, http://www.sdinnovation.co.uk/Resources/Cambs_PFI2.pdf. I now look forward to the remaining recommendations being acted upon.

It has been a month since you received my letter (below) and it appears to me that no action has been taken, since I have not been contacted to offer the further evidence as requested. It is now 19 months since my first contact with DEFRA on this issue and I feel no more helped now than when DEFRA's Waste Implementation staff first denied any knowledge of their waste consultation in Cambridgeshire and failed to offer the assistance which they promised.

This looks like a systemic failure of some kind, not only with the Cambridgeshire waste PFI, but with the national waste PFI programme as a whole, possibly as a result of a national failure of vision. Should we move from landfill to the next available disposal options or should we move swiftly away from all forms of dependence on disposal? The use of secretive PFIs serves to replace this vital public debate with unsustainable contracts arranged behind closed doors. The Treasury's clear statement of the necessary preconditions for value for money in PFIs are not being met with respect to accountability and speed of change in the technology. http://www.sdinnovation.co.uk/PFI_tricks.html#inappropriate

I would be grateful to know how you plan to respond to DEFRA's failure to observe the PFI criteria for Cambridgeshire. You will be aware that this issue is critically urgent as their Final Business Case is now due for review by DEFRA and I'm keen to avoid this being rubber stamped in advance of any serious and properly conducted investigation. I now offer the further evidence I mentioned last month, regarding how Cambridgeshire has misled DEFRA on PFI guidance, http://www.sdinnovation.co.uk/defra_pfi_guide.html. DEFRA already has my 2005 evidence http://www.sdinnovation.co.uk/stopPFI.html and my 2006 report http://www.sdinnovation.co.uk/Resources/Cambs_PFI2.pdf.

A delay of 19 months with no apparent action being taken is clearly unacceptable and has imposed massive avoidable costs on Cambridgeshire residents and the national purse. Please would you let me know, at your earliest convenience, how best I may complain about this at a higher level within DEFRA and to other bodies which oversee DEFRA and PFIs. I feel there is a need for some urgent oversight able to take an impartial view of whether there has been a cover-up of waste PFI problems both in Cambridgeshire and nationally (see http://www.sdinnovation.co.uk/defra_cover_up.html). The public interest may well be best served without any further waste PFIs.
Yours sincerely
James Greyson"

See also my evidence of the PFI criteria being flaunted.
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