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Nottinghamshire County Council was
found to have broken the law in several respects,
and have now been ordered by the Information
Commissioner's Office (ICO) to put it right.
A case that began before Mansfield Against
Incineration (MAIN) transformed into People Against
Incineration (PAIN) has resulted in a decision
forcing the County Council to release previously
redacted portions of the £850 million waste contract
with Veolia.
The Information Commissioner concluded that "In not
making certain information available Nottinghamshire
County Council breached regulations 5(1) and 5(2).
The Commissioner also decided that delays by NCC had
breached regulations 7(1), 7(3) and 14(2). In a
separate legal process, the complainant asked NCC
for some of the relevant information under the
provisions of the Audit Commission Act 1998. The
High Court granted access."
NCC have now released some of the documents, and are
preparing to release further information in response
to the ICO's decision. Failure to comply with the
ICO's decision in full by the 4th August could
result in the Commissioner approaching the High
Court and the County Council could be dealt with as
being in contempt of court.
According to Shlomo Dowen, who has been involved in
both MAIN and PAIN, the recently released
information adds further weight to concerns that
Nottinghamshire taxpayers are not receiving good
value for money.
"An appeal contingency of £300,000 for Veolia's
incinerator application means that taxpayers will be
paying £1 million or more to Veolia for their legal
expenses. I wonder how many County Councillors were
aware of this financial risk before the waste
contract was signed, and how many still support the
contract now that details like this are finally
emerging."
"The good news" according to Mr Dowen "is that there
are get out clauses that could be used to save huge
sums of money by walking away from this bad contract
on a no-fault basis".
PAIN recently issued a briefing paper calling
attention to some of these get out clauses. PAIN
expects to learn more about the contract when
further information is made public in accordance
with the ICO ruling. PAIN, together with Veolia,
Nottinghamshire County Council and the Audit
Commission also await the decision of the Appeal
Court regarding the release of financial details as
part of the annual audit of Council expenses. Last
year's accounts led to a seires of investigations by
the District Auditor.
PAIN is also waiting to read Veolia's final
environmental report to be submitted as part of the
ongoing public inquiry into proposals to build a
waste incinerator in Rainworth. The Planning
Inspector gave Veolia until the end of July to
produce an environmental report that assess the
combined effects of plans and
projects, including the proposed incinerator, on
nature conservation interests relating to woodlark
and nightjar. This “in-combination assessment” must
provide sufficient detail to enable the Inspector to
consider whether the incinerator, in combination
with other plans or projects, is likely to have a
significant effect on these nature conservation
interests. At the Pre-Inquiry Meeting in June Veolia
accepted responsibility for ensuring that the
information will be adequate, so that the inquiry
can restart in September and conclude before then
end of October 2010.
A final decision on Veolia's Sherwood Forest
incinerator application is not expected before 2011.
The full transcript of the case
is
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