NEWS

SMDA Review update
Having submitted the Association’s response to the Home Office review of the SMDA, the Team has continued to raise awareness of the issues faced by metal recyclers during meetings with representatives from Parliament and the House of Lords, including: Sheryll Murray, Lord Faulkner, Kate Green and Cheryl Gillan. Over the coming weeks, more meetings are scheduled to enable us to continue to raise awareness of the Review across both Houses and to ensure the process undertaken by the Home Office is both transparent and accountable. 

Trailblazers
The Trailblazer Apprentice scheme for a Metal Recycler General Operative has now been accepted in principle. Having developed the required Standard Plan, the working group has now begun the work of identifying training providers and end-point ‘assessment’ organisations. Further information and the associated documents will shortly be posted in the dedicated Trailblazers section of the BMRA website. If you are interested in learning more about the Apprenticeship, please contact Antonia. 

Strategic Review of Charges 
Robert joined an EA/Defra-hosted web conference on the strategic review of charges. It covered, pre-application charges and supplementary application fees, performance banding and time and materials charges, permit review and permit variations, together with the initial plans for consultation and engagement. The key EA targets were full cost recovery, system simplification, new and better chargeable services, and for the system to discourage poor performance.
 
The EA reported that it intends to categorise sites by activity to determine charge level and to introduce costs for time and materials. It is also seeing to bring in a new four-banded approach to assessing performance, which will replace OPRA. The full EA Presentation is available on request.

SEPA: Integrated Authorisation Framework
The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) is reviewing the existing structure of its authorisations framework as part of its regulatory reform and ‘one planet prosperity’ agenda. The aim is for the existing structure of authorisations in the scrap industry to become fully integrated with the rest of the waste sector making the application process simpler and more transparent. SEPA is consulting on these changes over the next two months and BMRA will be submitting a written response as well as maintaining more informal discussions with SEPA throughout the process.

Fire prevention plans
A meeting was recently held with the Environment Agency to discuss the development of industry specific fire prevention plan guidance. The BMRA guidance will look to support our members who may have difficulty reaching the exacting requirements outlined in the Agency’s own revised guidance document. BMRA aims to support the scrap metal industry by setting realistic parameters that both the Agency and scrap metal dealers can work to in order to reduce the incidence of fire.This meeting formed the beginning of discussions with the Agency and further announcements will shortly follow. 

Calendar Competition reminder!
Have you taken any photos for the 2018 calendar competition yet? Don’t forget to send them in! There are prizes to be won and the closing date is 1 October 2017. Submissions, which must be high resolution (+1MB), should be sent to Antonia. Full details available here.

New opinion article on website
With metals having been at an all-time low, resilience and innovation is needed in the metals industry when looking to the future, says Marcus Brew, MD Untha. Read the article here. If you would like to write a non-promotional opinion piece or submit a best practice-led article for the website, please contact Antonia. We would also like to learn about your account wins, team exploits, charity days and industry awards received. 

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MEETINGS AND EVENTS

Tripartite Meeting
Robert and Sam attended the first Tripartite meeting of the year together with Board member Mark Vaughan of ELG. During the meeting, a representative from Tata showed a film of a recent explosion in a furnace thought to have been caused by a gas cylinder. Meeting attendees agreed that the gas cylinder industry was still not taking its responsibilities seriously and it was agreed that the Tripartite committee would write to Defra to add weight to the demands for extended producer responsibility on all gas cylinders. It was also agreed that the BMRA should take the lead in this matter.

Scottish Policy Group meeting
Some six months since the implementation of the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act, members of the Scottish Policy Group report little evidence of enforcement and a lac of investigation when sites are visited. Members also report a significatn drop in business, alongside notable customer apathy elsewhere along the supply chain. From a regulatory standpoint, while the looming IED requirements have the potential to impact a number of members based in Scotland, it has been reported that SEPA may not follow the EA’s Fire Prevention Plans guidance.  The group agreed that the integrated Authorisation Framework being reviewed by SEPA (see above) will need careful scrutiny as much of the finer detail is seemingly absent from the document.

Metal Theft Working Group
As part of its remit on the working group, BMRA has continued to raise awareness of the damage the lack of enforcement is having on legitimate yards. Interestingly, BTP share concerns that the SMDA has never been tested in a market of rising metal prices and that a potential risk therefore existed.  While the Act is to be reviewed by the Home Office, BTP is keen to continue the work with stakeholders including the BMRA to develop a campaign to deter those asking to be paid in cash for scrap metal.

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BMRA Golf Day and AGM
This year’s Golf Day will take place at Celtic Manor on 5 July. Located just outside Newport in Wales, Celtic Manor is a world-class destination for golf, with three championship courses. Following on from the Annual General Meeting, the golf event will comprise a shotgun start and be played on The Roman Road course. The day will end with a dinner in the evening, which will be another great chance for members to network with colleagues and other members.
 
The cost for the whole day is £500 plus VAT per team of four, including dinner, and the cost to attend just the dinner is £50 plus VAT. If you have any questions, emailLyn Sheridan or call 01480 455249.
  

[Click here for more information and booking forms.]

 

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Race day hold the date!
BMRA is looking to hold a Race Day on Friday 28 April for members at its local course at Huntingdon. The cost is likely to be £112 plus VAT. This includes: champagne reception, savoury nibbles, a three-course meal and, of course, access to a cracking day of racing. More details will be released soon.