Red tape and bureaucracy: do we need PackUK to run the EPR?

Yesterday was the deadline for applications for anyone who fancied taking on the £135,000 a year job of running PackUK. Applications for the organisation’s head of strategy role (commanding a salary of up to £117,800) closed a week or so earlier.

In case you’ve not heard of it, PackUK was launched by Defra in January to implement and oversee the already much pilloried extended producer responsibility packaging programme.

Yet even before its leader has been found, sources in the industry are asking why we need this new body – especially as just last week prime minister Keir Starmer was pledging a new “bonfire of the quangos”, which he vowed would take aim at the “cottage industry of checkers and blockers slowing down delivery for working people”.

While the enormous layers of bureaucracy at NHS England were the PM’s target, it’s easy to see why some think PackUK could also be ready-made fuel for that particular fire, especially as it hasn’t even got going yet.

While the deposit return scheme, due to launch in October 2027, will see the government handing control over to a deposit management organisation (DMO) run by the biggest players in the industry, including soft drinks giants and retailers, delivery of the UK’s EPR is a different story.

Could PackUK be run by the private sector?

According to Defra, PackUK will be tasked with shifting the cost of managing household packaging waste from taxpayers and local authorities to the businesses who use and supply the packaging, applying the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

But who pays for PackUK itself? And why couldn’t the industry take on the job of managing EPR itself?

Pressure is now mounting on the government to go down that road, following the PM’s indication he would like to reduce the role of quangos, (despite the new Labour government having reportedly set up more than 20 of them since winning power).

So could PackUK be run by the private sector?

Defra has already made some concessions towards a producer-led EPR system. In October, environment minister Mary Creagh and her counterparts for the devolved nations wrote to industry bosses to say they had agreed to the idea of a “co-design process”, which would lead to the appointment of a producer responsibility organisation (PRO), with the design being led by leaders of the FDF and other food industry leaders.

Earlier this month, former M&S head of packaging Karen Graley was announced as the new head of this organisation, having previously been a founding member of the OPRL scheme.

Sources are now urging the government to go further and do away with the role of PackUK itself.

Red tape and added costs

The FDF has long been calling for ministers to learn from EPR successes in other countries including Belgium, Canada, France and many states in the US, all of which are producer-led.

It points out that the only two EPR systems led by the government are in Hungary and in Russia – for which EPR problems are admittedly not the current priority, but which also has some of the worst recycling rates in the world.

Giving the reins to producers, it says, would mean ensuring that the estimated £1.4bn a year cost of EPR is re-invested to boost local authority recycling facilities and other infrastructure, rather than getting swallowed up by competing demands from cash-strapped councils.

Read more: Food bosses threaten to abandon support for extended producer responsibility scheme

Just last month, the federation said that unless the government agrees to concrete concessions such as ringfencing of funds and fast tracking approval for chemical recycling, it will withdraw its support from the embattled EPR programme.

That certainly threatens a nightmare start for whoever takes the reins at PackUK.

“Almost every other EPR scheme in the world is private sector-led, except Hungary and Russia, where EPR is an ineffective tax,” says one source.

“Yet in the UK we are setting up a new quango to increase red tape and costs just at a time when EPR is already leading to major new costs on producers and threatening the growth agenda.”

An industry focus on EPR

Of course, it’s impossible to please all of the people all of the time. While Defra has insisted PackUK will work with producers to “enhance the role of business in running the programme”, other organisations, including Valpak, have warned that if the government moves too far towards a producer-led system, it could be bad news for local authorities who need long-term financial security to make EPR a success.

Another leading source in the food packaging world fears PackUK could lead to more cost being heaped on the industry without any additional efficiency in the system.

“At one point we talked about someone like Valpak running EPR,” they said. “But now we have gone down the quango route and decided it will sit under Defra.

“My experience of government-run departments is not exactly sparkling. You only have to look at Defra to see the sort of calibre of people they might bring in… Defra talks about the £1.4bn cost but there are many who believe the cost of EPR could end up being three times that. And there’s real concern about the administrative situation and the sheer volume of red tape.”

Those who would rip up PackUK before it gets going claim the industry is where ministers will find the right motivation to get value for money from EPR, as well as the right incentives for investing in a recycling scheme that leads to economic growth.

It is a debate that will once again test Labour’s relationship with the business sector it says it wants to work more closely with, regardless of who gets the job.