EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND

Introduction

  1. The existing annual report for 2015/16 can be found online at:
  2. http://wrwa.gov.uk/media/81622/WA37-916-web.pdf
  3. The Report includes sections on the Authority, its make-up, Members, meetings and organisational structure, and how it deals with all aspects of waste management in its area following the principles of the Waste Hierarchy. It also looks at waste trends and performance monitoring in 2016/17 and highlights its objectives for the future and how the public can assist in this. The document was originally drafted so that it would only be necessary to update annually factual changes such as tonnage and financial data.
  4. The Appendix to this report details, in highlighted plain text, the changes that are proposed for 2016/17 (all of which reflect simple factual updates) and the Authority is recommended to approve these.

ADMINISTRATIVE REQUIREMENTS

  1. Formal reviews of Freedom of Information and Environmental Information requests and complaints do not sit comfortably within the new Annual Report format and consequently these matters are now dealt with formally in this covering paper.
  2. Freedom of Information and Environmental Information
  3. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Authority is required to produce a publication scheme of information which is available to the public. The Authority agreed its scheme in December 2002 (as set out in Paper No. WRWA 428).
  4. Environmental Information Regulations establish an access regime, which allows people to request environmental information from public authorities and those bodies carrying out a public function. The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 came into force on 1st January 2005 (the same date that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 came fully into force).
  5. For the sake of a consistent approach, the Authority decided at its September 2004 meeting (Paper No. WRWA 478) to adopt the same approach to dealing