Don't Scrap the Landfill Communities Fund!

The Landfill Communities Fund is at risk.
The Landfill Tax
A landfill tax was introduced in 1996 and has been very successful in reducing the amount of waste we send to landfill. It has been a big help in driving more recycling.
The tax is paid by the waste companies who have contracts with local authorities and businesses. These Landfill Operators pay £84 per tonne of waste they deposit in the ground. And HM Treasury receives around £1.3 billion in tax revenues.
The Landfill Communities Fund
Most brilliantly of all, Landfill Operators can choose to re-direct part of their tax bill to local communities near landfill sites rather than paying it to the Treasury. In 2016-17 they can divert 90p of every £25 of tax they owe; so long as £1 goes to a community project. The local community normally fundraises for the missing 10p in every pound.
To date, most Operators have jumped at the chance to do this and since 1996 local communities near landfill sites have been able to invest over £1.4 billion in 51,000 projects.
These projects have had an amazing impact on Churches and Community groups: from building extensions to Churches, to providing resources to start-up play groups, to funding community wildlife projects, etc. there is no doubt that both our Churches and local communities are richer for the help they have received.
HOWEVER the scheme is under threat. Urgent action is required to ensure local community projects don’t lose £39 million every year.
The Threat
The Government is proposing to change the legislation so that Community Groups are no longer allowed to pay the missing 10p. Instead only Landfill Operators would be allowed to pay this. This may seem a small detail but it would in fact close down the scheme as we know it.
This is because the scheme is a voluntary one – and the cost to a Landfill Operator of having to find the 10p match funding would be significant. One major operator estimates this would amount to it having to find £500,000 of additional money each year. As a result, nearly all the main landfill operators have said they will not be able to find such money. They would therefore stop using the system of tax credits.
Yet Churches and local community groups have found this missing 10p in the pound time and time again. Finding match funding has never been a barrier to spending from the Landfill Communities Fund - in fact it is already oversubscribed at least twofold.
So, for no good reason, Churches and Community groups stand to lose millions (£39m in 2016-17 to be precise). And the country stands to lose a great ‘polluter pays’ scheme that is one of the biggest sources of funding for community projects.
More Background
In light of the economic conditions, the Treasury has been keen to ensure that the Landfill Community Fund is spent as quickly as possible - to pump money in to the economy.
The Treasury therefore challenged Landfill Community Fund bodies to reduce the amount of grant funds they were holding in their banks. Most funders met the challenge, with a minority failing to largely because of funds committed for longer term projects not yet being released. But despite their efforts the Treasury’s overall spending target was not met. The Treasury was not happy and so last year HMRC ran a consultation asking for ideas for increasing the speed of spending.
Some of respondents to the 2015 consultation highlighted the regulatory bureaucracy around the 10p for every pound they were finding. Others said it would be great not to have to fundraise for this 10p at all. No-one said they would prefer nothing to a 90% grant for their project. Yet these consultation responses are being used by the Treasury to justify the new proposals - proposals which would all but close down the scheme.
How you can help
Write to your local M.P. expressing your concern about the potential loss of the Landfill Communities Fund, asking your M.P. to raise this matter with the Exchequer Secretary of the Treasury, Damian Hinds M.P. urging him to allow local communities to continue to cover the 10% third party contribution.
or
Respond to the Treasury consultation on the statutory instrument, as proposed by HMRC and required to implement the changes. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-legislation-the-landfill-tax-amendment-regulations-2016. The deadline is 3 February 2016. The clauses in the statutory instrument that related to this change that should be removed are – clauses 6,8(a,bii,biii,c,&d), 9 and 10.