Question reference: S6W-03207
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 21 September 2021
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Current status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 4 October 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what material impact its policies and enforcement measures have had on incidences of waste crime over the last five years.
Answer
The Scottish Government continues to work with and support Scotland's environmental regulator SEPA in tackling waste crime.
The introduction of the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 introduced additional enforcement measures for SEPA to utilise which included Fixed Monetary Penalties, Variable Monetary Penalties and Enforcement Undertakings. This has expanded SEPA's toolkit for tackling environmental offending and allows a greater range of remedies targeted at both punishment of offender and remediation of environmental harm.
SEPA participate in several multi agency initiatives such as the Scottish Organised Crime Task Force and the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, a cross UK initiative to allow greater collaboration and operational impact on serious waste crime , particularly those who operate cross border.
In respect of tackling the ongoing issue of litter, a review of the National Litter Strategy was completed in 2019 and published on the Scottish Government website earlier this year. The review provides a snapshot of the activities that took place between 2014 and 2019 and also outlines areas of success and good practice case studies. Work has begun to refresh this as a National Litter and Flytipping strategy, which will be published in early 2022. Enforcement will be one of the four key themes this strategy focusses on.
Data on waste crime convictions is available from SEPA's website ( www.sepa.org.uk/regulations/enforcement).