Enhancing the Value of the Fund

Right from the start, the Fund has set out to operate as more than just a handout of government grant. Our criteria for funding aimed to double the value of the fund - through partnerships with the private sector, and between waste authorities, with the aim of levering "additionality" commitments from all partners involved. Over the first two years the Fund succeeded in achieving this aim. 135 projects valued at over £100million were funded through £50 million of core funding.

This approach continues. All applicants are encouraged to bring added value to their proposals through "additionality". The Fund aims to lever additionality from waste authorities themselves and also from the private sector. Waste authorities are less likely to be able to raise capital funding, but do have the opportunity to contribute additionality from their revenue stream, whereas if the project is a partnership with the private sector, there is a much greater chance that capital funding can be levered into the project through private sector contributions.

Additionality through longer-term budget commitments
When waste authorities introduce new or enhanced recycling arrangements there are short term and longer term costs. Applications where authorities commit to maintaining the scheme and its revenue costs past the life of the existing fund will rank higher when the allocation is being considered.

These additional revenue costs may be found from existing budgets, or through new money gained from the Support Grant received from Government, associated with the Environmental Protective and Cultural Services Standard Spending Assessment (EPCS SSA). These additional funds are specifically for services that include waste management and recycling.

If a typical waste collection authority, with a current annual waste management and recycling budget of £3million raised its spend on waste management and recycling by an additional annual spend of £250,000 over 5 years through a commitment to increased Kerbside collection, the authority is bringing £1.25 million additionality to a project proposal. If half of London's waste collection authorities took this action, the value of projects enabled by the Fund would almost double from this action alone. The table below gives indicative values for additionality for the three main fund priorities

Notes

1. Authority revenue commitments: In the case of revenue commitment the figures represent the added value over a 5-year period assuming participating waste authorities increase their annual budget by £0.25m per annum and sustain this level for 5 years.
2. Private capital investment; Assumes a 1:5 leverage value.
3. CRED Funding: The CRED programme, funded by the New Opportunities Fund has commenced work to distribute £35.3 million of lottery money. The scheme is funding community-based organisations undertaking recycling, minimisation and reuse projects across England.
4. Other external funding: External charitable funding bodies fund waste related projects that fall within their funding criteria