From: Ian
Category: News & information
Date: 10 Okt 2009
Time: 12:29:49 +0200
Remote Name: 86.133.192.7
Environmental campaigners are celebrating after a High Court judge ruled (1 October) that waste firm Veolia Environmental Services had to disclose commercial information about its £850 million PFI waste contract with Nottinghamshire County Council.
The case could set an important precedent to enable members of the public to ask local authorities to see every invoice issued for its waste services, including waste gate fees. It could also allow waste firms to show their sub-contractors and rival firms their profit margins and waste contracts.
I have little sympathy with those companies who want to keep information confidential between themselves and their clients. Most would be delighted to find out their competitors prices, though with flexible pricing structures seek to ensure that not even their customers speak to each other to compare prices. Perhaps this will bring everything into the open, for domestic waste services to Local Authorities and for clinical waste services to NHS Trusts.
After all, despite some minor technicality of the Foundation Trust status, these are publicly funded bodies and the public have a right to know that money is being spent wisely. I'm a little uncertain what the public would do with this information when it becomes available. Maybe the most important aspect is to open up still further a competitive market and put value on waste management services based upon quality and performance standards, and not on cost alone.