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This research-based report explores the key factors that help overcome barriers and limitations to effective partnerships in tackling waste crime. It assesses the NEST approach as a potential group structure for environmental regulators and identifies areas for improvement to facilitate cultural and behavioural changes within partnerships. Recommendations include the appointment of key roles, production of partnership reports, provision of joint training, and dedicated legal support.
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This report was prepared with the contribution of the LIFE financial instrument of the European Union Version 1.
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5.1 Environmental Enforcement Networks & Barriers and Limitations to Partnerships........... 6 5.2 Assessing NEST as a Solution in Overcoming Barriers and Limitations to Partnership Working........................................................................................................................................... 7 5.3 Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 8 5.4 Does the NEST Help Overcome Barriers? .......................................................................... 11 6.0 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................ 12 7.0 PROPOSED RECOMMENDATIONS AND NEXT STEPS .......................................................................... 13 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................. 14 ANNEX I - NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY TASK FORCES .................................................... I
Figure 1 - Nest model............................................................................................................ 8
Table 2 - Establishing a partnership group: Key actions ........................................................ 9
iv The activities and collaborations of environmental crime response agencies has tended to naturally occur around networks which are geographically-based (for example, known transit points and destinations in Scotland), discipline-based (for example, environmental regulators) and commodity-based (for example, waste). Collaboration across these dimensions and involving these networks can be predominantly horizontal, vertical or diagonal. Criminal groups and networks have the advantage generally of flexibility and a good working knowledge of local conditions and actors, which facilitate the crimes in question. A collaborative response needs to mirror these attributes. For example, it can mobilise a broad range of actors, with varying types and levels of expertise, with local through to international connections, around single-purpose interventions. It should have the capacity to provide ‘eyes on the ground’ as well as a ‘bird’s eye’ view of commodity chains and criminal networks. At the core of collaboration activities is information sharing. If this is accommodated and accomplished between and among the various agencies and actors within a particular group, then it opens the door to application of intelligence-led policing initiatives (based on tactical, operational and strategic assessment of intelligence databases) as well as market reduction approaches (that target disposal markets, including handlers and consumers). Both of these require systematic and detailed analysis of specific information. Two-way sharing of information demands that particular protocols be put into place. What is most important in joint working arrangements, however, is the human element. At an operational level, things seem to work best when we work with people we trust. This takes time. It also frequently involves informal as well as formal contact. Relationships of trust can take years to build – between individuals, teams/groups, agencies and institutions. They can also take seconds to unravel (one person betraying a confidence; an event that goes pear-shaped). Resilience must be built into the equation somehow, in part by establishing protocols, but also by ensuring that teams as well as individuals are highly engaged. At a practical level, this means that the soft skills of interpersonal communication are critically important. Moreover, since formally and informally we tend to go to our ‘personal contacts’ first in sizing up situations (including agency relationships and collaborations), it is important to analyse who the real ‘doers’ and ‘drivers’ are in any organisation (regardless of official status). Collaboration is not about ‘one size fits all’, nor does one model suit all situations or time periods. As things change, so too will the dynamics of collaborative practice. But the benefits of collaboration are tangible when the right people are brought together in the right way for the right reasons. Grant Pink Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Law University of New England, Australia Rob White Professor of Criminology, School of Social Sciences University of Tasmania, Australia August 2016
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The LIFE SMART Waste Project Team would like to thank all the individuals and organisations who generously gave up their time for interview and without whose collaboration the insights presented in this report would not have been possible. A further thank you is extended to SEPA colleague Melanie Van Niekerk who assisted in the methodology undertaken for this report. The LIFE SMART Waste Project has been made possible with the support of EU LIFE+ funding. Martin Davies – Natural Resources Wales (NRW) John Drever – HMRC David Edwardson – Environment Agency Bobby Gavin – Valpak Frans Geysels – Belgian Federal Police Brian Heffernan – Dublin City Council Eddie McGinney – NHS Scotland Grant Pink – University of New England Archie Rowatt – Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) Jim Scott – Scottish Business Resilience Centre Eleanor Strain – Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) Melanie Van Niekerk – Scottish Environment Protection Agency Rob White – University of Tasmania David Wilson – Police Service of Scotland Iain Wright – Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and provenance of the information contained in this report and to acknowledge all reference material consulted during the research process. Please advise us of any errors or omissions, or references that have been overlooked by emailing lifesmartwaste@sepa.org.uk, and we will update the report.
This report provides an analysis which identifies and evaluates key factors needed to implement effective and lasting partnerships. Partnership working is not spontaneous or intuitive, and effective collaboration does not occur by itself. There are inherent barriers to partnership working that need to be overcome for them to have a chance of delivering success: cultural and behavioural differences between partners; differences in expectations and information systems; and, the incompatibility of structures and processes. All of these limit the effectiveness of partnership groups (De Bree, De Hass and Meerman, 2015). The primary purpose of this report is to provide an analysis that identifies and evaluates potential solutions to overcoming these barriers. The analysis detailed within this report highlights the need for more focus to be placed on less tangible options such as communications, awareness raising and collaborative mind-sets to overcome partnership barriers. The fact that these solutions tend to fall into the arena of behaviours and cultures perhaps explains why public agencies often struggle with maintaining vibrant partnerships. It is easier to focus on processes and governance than it is to change existing cultures and behaviours. A further function of this report is to provide this as a starting-point for the development, for the first time, of a practical guide for environmental regulators and investigators in designing intervention groups which tackle specific waste crime issues. The progress of such a guide will be undertaken by intervention officers as the first stage in an interventions design. The findings of this report, however, will have value in other areas of regulatory business where partnerships are expected to play a central role. The first section of the report gives a brief overview of some current examples of environmental enforcement collaborations in a European and international context by way of demonstrating that inherent weaknesses exist within all collaborative groups. This is followed by an overview of common barriers to partnership working as identified by the LIFE SMART project in consultation with environmental and law enforcement colleagues in the UK and beyond. We show that interventions groups are limited as much by underlying issues of trust - competing cultures of "need-to-know" rather than "dare-to-share" amongst group participants - as they are by weak or absent procedural and governance frameworks. As Janssen states, "Culture can also be viewed as the DNA of a certain group of people and as such can't be challenged very easily" (Janssen, 2015, p.59) The National Environmental Security Task Force (NEST) approach is then assessed for its effectiveness in providing a partnership framework that helps overcome these barriers. The NEST has been used as an operational framework to build international collaborations tackling environmental crime since 2012. Designed and recommended by Interpol as a multi-disciplinary approach to collaboration between police, customs, environmental agencies, the judiciary and other partners, the NEST represents the most recent and thorough attempt yet at providing a practical guide to building partnerships. Despite effective deployment at the international level however, the analysis provided in this report argues that application of the NEST would meet with rather less success as a practical guide in designing interventions at a local and regional level. Our analysis establishes that NEST remains a group structure focused primarily around formal processes and systems rather than, as our analysis suggests is required, activities that drive cultural and behavioural changes within the partnership itself. However, we propose that the NEST model can be adapted to bring practical value to frontline staff at either a local or regional level. The report suggests amendments to the established NEST approach and provides guidance on those
additional, less tangible factors around cultures and behaviours such as, building a collaborative mind-set, raising awareness and improving communications, which need to be considered when designing partnership groups to deal with waste crime. The report recommends that an amended NEST approach is adopted as the primary means by which interventions groups design partnerships. There is no "one size fits all" approach to partnership working however, and this report concludes that they must be designed as an early stage, constituent of interventions design itself. The design of partnerships should be approached as a crucial dependency upon which the success or failure of the intervention itself rests and not, as is so often the case, a supplementary resourcing issue arranged once an intervention is already agreed upon. With this in mind, this report will also propose some key considerations, including individuals’ limitations, barriers in structures and processes, and resources, that interventions groups should consider in designing their partnerships and which can be developed and validated in the later stages of the LIFE SMART Waste project.
This report is research based with the primary purpose to identify the key factors that help overcome barriers and limitations inherent to partnership working and to undertake an analysis of their usefulness to determine what waste crime investigators and interventions groups need to consider when building local and regional partnerships. The report begins with an overview of current examples of environmental enforcement partnerships and the barriers and limitations that characterise all attempts at partnership working. The report then considers the Interpol NEST as a solution to these problems and identifies areas where amendments must occur for it to become a practical and operational framework at local and regional levels. The purpose of the report is not to provide a practical, how-to guide for the setting-up and practical operation of a partnership group. Rather, the report will suggest a new strategic framework that places firmly partnership design as a defined stage in interventions design. The report will conclude with recommendations for further development within the LIFE SMART interventions work-stream, which is currently progressing under Action B14, and call for the production by the team of a practical guide for environmental regulators and investigators in designing intervention groups which tackle specific waste crime issues.
An invitation was extended to a number of individuals from various organisational sectors to participate in structured one-to-one interviews about their experiences of partnership working and the barriers and limitations faced by them. In order to identify what factors or options help overcome barriers, a methodological approach was used based on a technique called Multi-Criteria Mapping (MCM) developed by the University of Sussex. The purpose of MCM is to collect and explore contrasting perspectives around uncertain issues and to assess the value of alternative options in delivering outcomes. It is a tried and tested approach based on structured interviews with participants and, unlike the group format of workshop-based environments, allows for the collection of qualitative and quantitative data for subsequent analysis. It provides a compelling opportunity to explore the perspectives of experienced officers in tackling waste crime and to critique with them the most effective ways of overcoming barriers to partnership working. The approach has been used previously to evaluate policy options around genetically modified crops and obesity, and this exercise presents the first known application in a waste crime regulatory context (Sussex, 2015). Twelve MCM interviews were conducted over a six month period between December 2015 and May 2016 involving participants from environmental regulation, law enforcement, local authorities and other public sector agencies, the waste sector and European law enforcement. Interviewees were chosen deliberately to reflect a range of varying perspectives based on local experience and in different regulatory and enforcement contexts. Despite the innovative use of MCM with a representative sample characterised by a broad range of experiences, there is an important limitation in this study. The small size of the sample does not allow us to provide a comprehensive answer to the question of what barriers are faced by environmental agencies across the board nor to provide definitive solutions on how best to overcome them. Nevertheless, whilst acknowledging the limitations of the sample size, the consensus reached from the respondents supports the application of this analysis as a starting point for further research and development opportunities. Each interviewee was presented with 16 options identified from an earlier practitioner workshop and a literature review as being potential solutions in overcoming barriers to partnership working. Interviewees were asked to evaluate and score the usefulness of each option as a solution and, importantly, to do this by identifying and defining the criteria they used in making their assessments. The research team presented the interviewees with one pre-set criteria – “the likelihood of success” of the options – and, thereafter, interviewees were asked to further evaluate options using criteria of their own choosing and to score each option on a numerical scale from 0 (least useful) to 100 (most useful).
really deliver. This is further intensified in instances of ‘strategic’ partnerships, composed of executive managers, in which the absence of a blend of tactical and executive knowledge results in barriers to meaningful progress. Individuals do not always feel they have the necessary skills, understanding and experience to contribute meaningfully to the partnership. These same individuals are not supported by their own management with dedicated time and resource to engage fully in the activities of the partnership; management wants to be seen to be involved but does not see it as additional work for the individual who often becomes overloaded and detached from the partnership. Partnerships are often established in name only with no deeper foundations to drive active collaboration across the group; staffs are assigned to "partnership work" in a general sense with no understanding of roles and responsibilities, the purpose of the partnership, expected outcomes and measures. In these cases, the partnership becomes simply a collection of individuals representing their own agencies, a partnership in name only that meets and communicates on an ad hoc basis; the partnership suffers from a sort of mission creep whereby each individual uses it for the purposes of their own agency rather than for a common objective. Competing cultures often emerge in name-only partnerships that prevent the formation of trust and common purpose between its members; this is often seen in a conflict between partners over "need-to-know" or "dare-to-share" intelligence and information exchange. These barriers can be grouped into three general themes: individuals’ limitations, barriers in structures and processes, and resourcing. To have a chance of making our partnerships work and to deliver interventions with a high likelihood of success, we need a robust group structure which can actively mitigate all of these weaknesses. As described by Higgins and White the NEST framework brings together representatives from across a range of agencies and allows these groups to leverage the collective skill sets of partners to develop and implement responses to a specific and agreed issue (Higgins and White, 2016). The next section will assess the NEST as a potential group structure for use by SEPA and other regulators in delivering partnership interventions tackling waste crime.
A detailed summary of the NEST approach can be found in Appendix 1 of this report. The main conceptual difference between the NEST approach and traditional examples of partnership working is that, whereas the latter is characterised mostly by general co- operation and the sharing of resources in support of broad aims, the former is about establishing a defined team comprising investigators, analysts, financial investigators and others across agencies to collaborate in the analysis, investigation, and tackling of specific problem issues (Higgins and White 2016, p.106). In this respect, the building of a defined team with specific roles and responsibilities, the NEST does provide a structure that could overcome one of the main barriers to partnership working. Moreover, the NEST appears to be successful and is helping to deliver results. Interpol reports that its adoption by member states has led to successful international collaborations tackling a range of serious environmental crimes: Project LEAF is directed against illegal logging and related crimes; Project SCALE is improving detection and
suppression of fisheries crime; whereas, Project EDEN is countering international trade and disposal of waste (Interpol 2016). Figure 1 - Nest model It is an uncontentious observation that NEST is now established and recognized as a best practice approach to active engagement and collaboration between partners. Instead of reinventing the wheel or trying to develop different conceptual models of partnership working, environmental authorities should focus on how best to apply the principles of NEST as a practical and operational framework at local and regional levels. It would be a mistake, however, to attempt an immediate wholesale adoption. NEST was developed by Interpol to drive international collaboration in combating cross-border environmental crimes and it does not necessarily follow that the drivers of successful collaboration at this level are replicated within member states engaged in tackling waste crime at a local or regional operational level, nor that it would easily help us overcome the barriers inherent in partnership working between agencies within member states. The next stage is to identify what we need to do to overcome the barriers to partnership working and to ask if these factors are provided by the NEST; only then will we be in a position to decide if and how best to adopt the NEST for our purposes.
Each interviewee was presented with 16 options and asked to evaluate and score the usefulness of each option as a solution to overcoming the barriers to partnership working. This exercise identified a list of key actions that need to be undertaken when establishing a partnership group, outlined in descending order of importance below.
the common evaluation of a single intelligence database as being the least useful option for overcoming the barriers that exist in collaborative working, while agreeing with others that we need to build the collaborative mind-set and improve communications. As one environmental regulator stated during interview, "The key to partnerships is people, not databases: they are support tools" – albeit necessary tools. Overcoming barriers to partnership working to tackle waste crime, therefore, must deliver in these key areas of cultures and behaviours and not become overly distracted by questions over governance, structures and hierarchy. Stating that barriers to partnership working can be overcome by improving communications seems to be so obvious as to be an unhelpful and facile generalisation. As obvious as this observation appears however, it does reveal further the nature of the challenge facing environmental regulators in building effective collaborative partnerships. It is one thing saying we need to improve communications, for example, but it is another thing to work out how we do it. We need to know where to put most of our effort. With this objective in mind, a second analytical phase was conducted which asked interviewees to assess and score the degree of uncertainty in delivering each option: the higher an uncertainty score, the less confidence from the participant that the option could be delivered successfully. The following chart compares the average scores of each option with the levels of uncertainty attributed by participants and presents a number of interesting observations. In short, there are degrees of uncertainty associated with each option that need to be aware of so that we know where more considered time and effort is required when we come to build our interventions groups. Although the average levels of uncertainty are not high, it is evident from the chart that high ranking options such as improving communications , sharing priorities and appointing single points of contact should not be implemented without careful consideration to the issues that have given rise to levels of uncertainty. One of the key elements of successful collaborations is the ability to build trusting relationships between partners. However, the most common issue that arose in relation to single points of contact was the uncertainty held by interviewees that, in practice, assurances could not really be given that an individual appointed to a role had the commitment, capability, capacity and skills to meaningfully undertake it. Similarly, the analysis indicates that although interviewees agreed that sharing priorities appeared to be a straightforward action and would promote openness and honesty, it would in practice require a change in
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Single Points of Contact Share Priorities Improve Communications Raise Awareness Online Information Hub Joint Training & Events Legal Support Collaborative Mind-Set Staff Placements Intelligence Training Partnership Report Operational Working… Partnership Templates Appoint Key Roles Publicise Success Intelligence Database Uncertainty Score Average Ranked Score
organisational cultures. This inertia factor could mean that it would take some considerable time before any results were seen by others in the partnership. Finally, we would also argue that the somewhat simplistic advice of improving communications between partners requires a deeper understanding of the issues that reflect the uncertainty attributed to this highest ranking option: recognition of cultural differences within and between agencies at national and international levels is fundamental to improvement. Indeed, intrinsically linked to the improvement of communications is a common issue that emerged with several of the options considered by the participants: the need to use common language. Uncertainty is a challenging issue and will require innovative and creative responses. This analysis shows clearly that in building effective partnerships environmental regulators face real challenges: options that are needed to overcome barriers tend to be characterised by cultural and behavioural elements that are actually the most challenging to implement.
In order to answer this question the next step was to identify and compare the key elements of the NEST with the analysis provided above and ask whether it focuses sufficiently on the behavioural and cultural drivers of partnership working or if it remains a framework focused mostly on the maintenance of systems and processes. Broadly speaking, NEST calls for enhanced focus in six areas of activity to drive effective partnerships: appointment of key roles production of partnership reports provision of joint training dedicated legal support partnership templates improved intelligence training When we compared these areas of activity with the analysis provided above it was clear that NEST remains a group structure focused primarily around formal processes and systems rather than, as our analysis suggests is required, activities that drive cultural and behavioural changes within the partnership itself. Perhaps this is due to the NEST approach being, in part, aimed at countries with no formal structures or systems in place and little partnership engagement experience to tackle environmental crime issues. We need, then, to change NEST to fit our requirements: a fact which probably explains why in all likelihood NEST has not had any discernible impact, from a UK perspective, as a partnership framework at a local or regional level but has remained as a general structure guiding the formation of strategic groups. This is hardly surprising and should not be read as a criticism of NEST which was developed, of course, to drive international collaborations. Overall, NEST provides a foundation for partnership working by offering an exemplar of how successful collaboration rests on some key systematic elements such as, the appointment of key roles and the production of common partnership reports and templates. Nevertheless, in order now for NEST to successfully drive local operational partnerships by environmental regulators, it must be amended to facilitate the less tangible, but no less important, components of partnerships such as building a collaborative mind-set, raising awareness and improving communications.
The LIFE SMART Waste Interventions Team adopts and amends the Interpol NEST as its primary framework for building partnerships to deliver interventions tackling waste crime issues. Recommendations for interventions tackling waste crime will be set out in a series of intelligence reports produced under Implementation Action B11 and will follow the focus of the intelligence gathering strategy on tackling the enablers and vulnerabilities to crime and the design and deployment of prevention-based interventions. The LIFE SMART Waste Interventions Team incorporates partnership design as a first- stage dependency in the interventions design approach itself and that partners are involved from the beginning in that work. This research paper is used by the team as a basis from which to develop the first, practical guide for environmental regulators and investigators in designing intervention groups which tackle waste crime issues and which should include, but not limited to:
BBC NEWS, 2015. May the task force be with you [viewed 16 June 2016]. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-business- 34663535 BREE, M. de, HAAS, H. de and MEERMAN, P., 2015. Can supervision and enforcement networks make self-regulation work? In: M. FAURE, P. DE SMEDT and A. STAS, eds. Environmental enforcement networks, concepts, implementation and effectiveness. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, p. ENPE, 2015. Welcome to the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment [viewed 28 June 2016]. Available from: https://www.environmentalprosecutors.eu ENVICRIMENET, 2011-2016. EnviCrimeNet – Home [viewed 28 June 2016]. Available from: http://envicrimenet.com HIGGINS, D. and WHITE, R., 2016. Collaboration at the front line: Interpol and NGOs in the same NEST. In: G. PINK and R. WHITE, eds. Environmental crime and collaborative state intervention. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan IMPEL, 2016. European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law [viewed 28 June 2016]. Available from: http://www.impel.eu/about-impel INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT (INECE), 2016. [viewed 28 June 2016]. Available from: http://inece.org INTERPOL, 2016. Connecting police for a safer world. Projects [viewed 28 June 2016]. Available from: http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Environmental-crime/Projects JANSSEN, E., 2015. Connecting cultures: towards sustainable networking: key success factors for environmental cooperation across cultures. In: M. FAURE, P. DE SMEDT and A. STAS, eds. Environmental enforcement networks, concepts, implementation and effectiveness. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, p. PINK, G., 2015. Environmental enforcement networks: theory, practice and potential. In: M. FAURE, P. DE SMEDT and A. STAS, eds. Environmental enforcement networks, concepts, implementation and effectiveness. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 13- 33 UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX, 2014. Multicriteria Mapping [viewed 18 July 2016]. Available from: http://www.multicriteriamapping.com/ Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and provenance of the information contained in this report and to acknowledge all reference material consulted during the research process. Please advise us of any errors or omissions, or references that have been overlooked by emailing lifesmartwaste@sepa.org.uk, and we will update the report.
