Stevenson Attacks SEPA's £7million Spend On Consultants

STAFF NUMBERS HAVE DOUBLED BUT VAST SUMS STILL BEING SPENT ON OUTSIDE CONSULTANTS

SNP candidate for Banff & Buchan Stewart Stevenson has launched an attack on SEPA, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, for spending over £7 million on consultants.

Mr Stevenson - a long-standing critic of SEPA - earlier this year attacked the agency for charging farmers for using tar planings from roadworks to mend their farm tracks while the Environment Agency in England had adopted a common-sense approach and had waived its charges in a bid to encourage re-use and recycling of the material. Stevenson also criticised SEPA for charging higher costs in relation to the IPPC regulations than the Environment Agency.

Mr Stevenson obtained the figures in a letter from SEPA which shows that between 2000/01 and 2005/06, SEPA spent a total of £7,112,913 on consultants. Since its inception in the mid-1990s, SEPA's own staff numbers have doubled.

Commenting on the figures, Mr Stevenson said:

"These figures are flabbergasting, particularly coming from an organisation that has seen an explosion in the numbers of staff it employs directly.

"One would expect the need for consultants to decrease as SEPA's own staff numbers rise, but the truth is quite the opposite as from 2000/01 to 2004/05 the annual spend on consultants rose year on year.

"it is no wonder given what we are now discovering about SEPA that its charges levied on farmers are as high as they are.

"This is simply further confirmation that a root and branch shake up of SEPA is needed. An SNP Government will do just that after May 3^rd. It's time to rein in this out-of-control bureaucratic nightmare."