Supporting Wales’ Transition to Packaging EPR: How Local Partnerships is Shaping Policy and Shifting Costs to Producers

Local Partnerships supports the Welsh Government in designing and implementing the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy for packaging by providing project management, technical expertise, and facilitating stakeholder collaboration.

Local Partnerships is supporting the Welsh Government in its role alongside the other 4 Nation counterparts to design and deliver EPR policy for packaging. This policy shifts the cost burden of collecting and managing packaging waste from taxpayers to producers, with producers paying local authorities for packaging waste services. Over the past two years, we have provided technical support and project management expertise, ensuring that policy outcomes are shaped considering all stakeholder perspectives, and that delivery is both practical and effective.

The Challenge:

Local Partnerships was initially brought into the project to provide project management support, ensuring the project had a clear brief, board terms of reference, active risks and issues management and facilitating communications between team members and within the four nations setting. Over the past year, we’ve expanded our role to include technical expertise to the policy design team, drawing on our understanding of both local government strategy and the packaging industry.

The Solution:

We have worked closely with the Welsh Government, acting as a “trusted friend” and part of the team. We support colleagues in the decision-making process, facilitating the right conversations with partners such as WLGA and NRW and analysing the evidence.

We are the bridge between national government, local government and industry, drawing on supply chain and waste management sector research, knowledge and connections.

Examples of the approaches we have undertaken and the tasks we have delivered are:

• facilitating workshops and discussions to align policy intent and resolve design issues.
• mapping financial data and material flows to inform policy design.
• drafting Wales’ regulatory impact assessment, translating complex economic models into clear language.
• contributing to the technical working groups on finance and on litter, helping to ensure that policy intent is achievable in practice.
• facilitating regular touchpoints with Defra colleagues, assisting with project planning and supporting effective collaboration across the four nations.
• supporting future policy thinking around EPR and identifying areas for further development.

The Impact:

The packaging EPR policy project will shift around £70 million in costs from local authorities to producers in Wales, with £1.2 billion across the UK as a whole. This policy aims to improve both the quantity and quality of recycling through mechanisms like fee modulation based on recyclability. On 1 May 2024, UK Government notified the draft Packaging EPR Regulations to the WTO and the EU.

Debbie and Kiran have provided invaluable support to the packaging Extended Producer Responsibility project. The technical expertise and structure they have brought to an extremely complex and fast paced policy area has enabled us to meet delivery objectives during an intense period while experiencing considerable staff turnover within a small civil service team. Their support enabled new colleagues to deliver at pace while learning extremely complicated topics and the activities they delivered themselves eased pressures which would have otherwise been impossible for the team to manage.

Dr Simon Tew, Extended Producer Responsibility Programme Director

Can We Help?

Do you have a project you would like help with, or could we answer a question about our services? Please message us today, contact Dr Debbie Fletcher or Hattie Parke or use the ‘can we help?’ form found on the right of this page. We look forward to hearing from you.