Litter enforcement under new contract hoped to be 'fair and even-handed'

Windsor and Maidenhead council will look to bring historically controversial littering enforcement in-house in the future – but not for a few years.

The Liberal Democrats made a point of saying in the run-up to the May elections that they would like to bring more services in-house and review some important contracts.

Leader Simon Werner felt that some of the contractors in the Borough were not providing a good service.

As an early step to this, the cabinet discussed bringing environmental enforcement – fines for littering, fly-tipping and suchlike – in-house.

Under the previous administration, the behaviour of environmental enforcement officers, provided by District Enforcement, came under fire.

A number of businesses and private residents felt they were being unfairly penalised for trivial misdemeanours, such as mistakenly dropping a cigarette butt, or placing a cardboard box next to a full recycling bin rather than inside of it.

Moreover, there were concerns that this company’s fines-for-profit model was encouraging enforcement officers to be overzealous in their enforcement.

A contract has now been recommended for environmental enforcement with Waste Investigations Support & Enforcement (WISE).

This company works with 12 other local authorities to offer enforcement specifically for environmental crimes.

This will be allowed to run its course for two years, with options for two one-year extensions.

After the first two, the council could seek to bring environmental enforcement in-house – but for now, wants to ‘stand back’ and see if this is a viable and desirable option.

Either way, the council has ‘control’, said Councillor Geoff Hill, cabinet member highways and transport, customer service centre and employment.

“We can direct enforcement where we want to direct them,” he said.

Cllr Adam Bermange, cabinet member for planning, legal and asset management, said enforcement should be ‘transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent.’

“That's effectively baked into the contract. That's our duty as a council and we’re passing that duty to the contractor,” he said.

Discussions have been ongoing with officers to ‘put right’ some aspects of enforcement and Cllr Hill said that overall, he ‘likes the work that officers have done’ on the contracts.

Cllr Amy Tisi, cabinet member for children’s services, education and Windsor, added that it was important to properly use tools of education when using enforcement,

People had previously expressed concerns that these processes have been ‘all stick and no carrot,’ she said.

Meanwhile, deputy leader of the council Cllr Lynne Jones (OWRA, Old Windsor) wanted to be sure of a ‘fair appeals process’ for those who feel they have been unfairly swept up by enforcement.

“I’m completely confident we’re playing by the rules, that we can intervene when necessary, at any stage in the process,” Cllr Hill replied.

Cllr Hill recounted an ‘amicable’ and ‘very fair and even-handed’ fly-tipping case whereby the resident subject to enforcement was not required to go to court – instead, they received a small fine and agreed to get a commercial waste licence.

“If we don't feel confident that the contractor is performing as they should, or treating our residents unfairly, we will intervene and we will stop them,” Cllr Hill added.