27 June - Pee’d off with butt kicking
The next item on the Places Agenda was every Council’s favourite occupation.
Fining residents in order to raise as much cash as possible, except that in
Bexley things may not be going entirely to plan.
Since July 2024 the Council’s litter enforcement contractor,
Wise Ltd, has issued more than 2,800
Fixed Penalty Notices for littering, dog fouling and spitting etc. It has a three
year contract operating at varying times for 76 hours a week.
Of the 2,800 plus penalties issued, 2,327 were for cigarette butts, 136 for spitting,
35 for a surreptitious pee but only 1.277 people paid up. 977 fines were written off
and 66 were simply cancelled many of them because they should never have been issued in the first place.
Belvedere and Crayford were the worst affected places, 25% of the borough total
each, with Erith on 17%, Bexleyheath at 16·5% and Sidcup on 11.
Staff retention figures indicate that no one much likes fining fellow citizens.
Councillor Sally Hinkley (Labour, Belvedere) said that the number of
prosecutions was so low as to offer little incentive to pay. It was explained to
her that FPNs, unlike Parking Penalties, represented a criminal offence and could
have you sent straight to Court for non-payment. The
Council officer explained that because of that the usual legal checks applied.
How good is the evidence and what is the prospect of a successful prosecution?
When asked how Bexley Council success rates compared with other Councils he said
that such figures are not published but “it is much better than
the previous
contractor who I will not name”. (Councillor Borella was less reticent and named them.)
Councillor Cheryl Bacon (Conservative, Sidcup) asked if there were more operatives in
Belvedere and Crayford or whether the people there are less well behaved. The
Council officer did not know but would carry out the necessary data analysis.
Labour Leader Stefano Borella asked what was probably the most sensible question of the night;
how much are we paying Wise Ltd and with such a low payment success rate is it
worth doing. The Council officer declined to answer the question in public.
Councillor John Daveyְ’s (Conservative, Sidcup) question was a fairly good one
too. “Do we keep a record of people who don’t pay so that we can track
persistent or repeat offenders?” Once again the Council officer didn’t know the answer.
Councillor Rags Sandhu (Conservative,
Bexleyheath) asked what checks
are made on identity data offered by potential offenders. Another question to which an answer was declined.
Chairman Cameron Smith, while drawing the discussion to a close did at least see the ‘funny’ side of the debate and apologised to any
member of the public listening who heard so many questions and got so very few answers.
Litter enforcement looks to be another contract ripe for Reform UK’s DOGE group.