Newsletter, December 2006 |
|
Contents this month
Project news
Drugsfutures
The UK Government has asked the Academy of Medical Sciences to
take forward a process of further deliberation around the issues
raised in the Foresight report, ‘Drugs Futures 2025?’ The
report, published in July 2005, was based on 15 ‘state-of-science’ reviews
and explored the likely impact of future science on addiction,
drug use and treatments for mental well-being.
Dialogue by Design are working with a consortium led by OPM (the
Office of Public Management), on a national programme of public
engagement that will explore the hopes and concerns of a broad
cross-section of the public on current and future issues relating
to brain science, addiction and drugs.
In addition to events and workshops across the UK run by OPM and
partners, Dialogue by Design are developing an online consultation
and a blog to enable a wider public to have their say.
The project will be launched later this month and launched to
the public at the end of January 2007.
DbyD is new convenor for NDA stakeholder engagement arrangements
We are delighted to have just been appointed by the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority (NDA) as the convenor of their national stakeholder
engagement work. We are undertaking this in partnerhsip with colleagues
at 3KQ. The NDA has responsibility for cleaning up the legacy
of nuclear wastes and decommissioning nuclear power stations.
This stakeholder engagement project aims to inform the NDAs decisions
as well as give people an opportunity to understand the dilemmas
and difficult choices the UK faces regarding nuclear cleanup.
We are excited about independently convening a process that has
so much significance for both local and national stakeholders across
the UK. Our focus is two-fold: firstly maintaining a steady course
on delivering the current engagement arrangements, and secondly
encouraging a gradual evolution to ensure the process meets as
many peoples’ needs as possible in a rapidly changing climate.
The Environment Agency and WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action
Programme) have been seeking stakeholder views on the ‘Quality
Protocol for compost’.
Recent rulings by the European Court of Justice have led to a
broader application of the definition of waste, leading to the
conclusion that more things are waste and remain waste for longer.
This has had an impact on the use of compost produced from source-segregated
biowaste due to the uncertainty of when the compost could be considered
to be fully recovered and no longer subject to regulatory controls.
This quality protocol has been developed by the BREW (Business
Resource Efficiency and Waste) Programme, WRAP and the Environment
Agency, in consultation with industry and other regulatory stakeholders.
It is a formalised quality control procedure for the production
of quality compost from source segregated bio-waste.
This consultation seeks to gain feedback from a wide range of
different stakeholders on various aspects of the protocol with
the aim of delivering a final protocol that has full industry support
and backing.
The aim is to produce a final version of the Quality Protocol
for compost by Spring 2007.