The Scottish Government

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1.0 Introduction

1.1 This consultation document has been prepared by the Scottish Executive in consultation with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Administration, and their agencies.

1.2 The document requests information and comments from interested parties, including industry and non-governmental organisations ( NGOs) (see Annex A for a list of consultees), on proposals to implement the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register Regulation ¹ (the E-PRTR Regulation), and the establishment of a UK-PRTR in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe ( UN-ECE) Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers ² (the PRTR Protocol).

1.3 Since 2001, the European Commission has collected data on mass emissions from all Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control ( IPPC) Directive installations, and published a collation and analysis of the data in the form of the European Pollutant Emission Register ( EPER) ³. The purpose is to make available information for the public and regulators, and to have data for assessing compliance with EU and international obligations.

1.4 Under this system, the UK provided the necessary emissions data through the pollution inventories for Scotland, England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Department For Business, Enterprise And Regulatory Reform ( DBERR) regulated offshore oil and gas installations, as well as estimations made by Defra on behalf of local authority regulated IPPC installations in England and Wales.

1.5 For the reporting year 2007 onwards, the EPER is replaced by the E-PRTR Regulation, and with this transition comes a number of new reporting requirements. Most notably, data is required for several new industry sectors that currently fall outside the scope of the UK's existing pollution inventories.

1.6 At the same time, as a signatory state to the PRTR Protocol, the UK will be required to establish a national web-based PRTR. At present, separate electronic inventories are maintained by both SEPA and the EA.

1.7 This consultation document sets out and seeks views on proposals for the implementation of the E-PRTR Regulation in Scotland. This is being consulted on separately by DEFRA in conjunction with WAG, NI and DBERR. It is expected that the two consultations will run in parallel.

1.8 We are particularly interested in your views on the appropriateness and workability of the proposals. A number of specific questions are set out throughout the document and summarised at the end.

1.9 The Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment ( RIA) prepared by DEFRA for the UK, examining the costs and benefits of the various options considered to implement the E-PRTR Regulation and establish a UK-PRTR is attached at Annex B.

A glossary of terms and acronyms is provided at Annex C.

How to respond to this consultation

1.10 The commencement date of this consultation is 5 September 2007. The closing date for responses is 28 November 2007. Written responses to inform the Government on this proposal should be sent to:

Eleanor Paterson

Email: SEPATeam@Scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Tel.: 0131 244 8500

1.11 When responding, please state whether you are responding as an individual or representing the views of an organisation. If responding on behalf of an organisation, please make it clear who the organisation represents, and where applicable, how the views of members were assembled.

Outcome

1.12 Early responses would be most welcome. We aim to publish a summary of consultation responses by the end of November 2007.

Confidentiality

1.13 We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form enclosed with this consultation paper as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

1.14 All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Executive is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

1.15 Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public (see the attached Respondent Information Form), these will be made available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library and on the Scottish Executive consultation web pages. We will check all responses where agreement to publish has been given for any potentially defamatory material before logging them in the library or placing them on the website. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the SE Library on 0131 244 4556. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

1.16 This consultation, and all other Scottish Executive consultation exercises, can be viewed online on the consultation web pages of the Scottish Executive website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.

1.17 The Scottish Executive now has an email alert system for consultations (SEconsult: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/seconsult.aspx). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements, but in no way replaces SE distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all SE consultation activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Help with enquires

1.18 If you would like help with queries, or require further information about this consultation, please contact:

Eleanor Paterson: Eleanor.Paterson@Scotland.gsi.gov.uk

Tel 0131 244 7933
Fax 0131 244 0245

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