( GUF) COUNCIL MALFEASANCE OR GOOD POLICY?

In towns and cities across the UK, environmental enforcement has quietly evolved into an industry. What began as a deterrent against fly-tipping and littering has morphed into a pay-per-fine business model; one that rewards overreach, punishes common sense and undermines public trust.

Councils are legally forbidden from using fines to raise revenue.

DEFRA’s own guidance is unambiguous: 'The purpose of fixed penalty notices is to offer an offender the opportunity to discharge liability for an offence; not to raise revenue' and yet, through outsourcing to private enforcement firms, many councils have found a convenient loophole; subcontract the punishment, pocket the proceeds and throw around the claim that 'it’s all in the name of cleaner streets'.

The illusion of legality lies in the language. Councils don’t “profit” from fines, they reinvest penalty income into enforcement operations and even put disclaimers on their websites 'to prove' it. Private contractors, in turn, are remunerated per offence successfully issued. In plain English, that's fines fund fines.

Professional, highly efficient enforcement companies now patrol public spaces across the UK operating under cost-neutral contracts that tie their *income directly to the number (and value) of fixed penalty notices (FPNs) issued (*the company - the enforcement officers are (apparently) paid a salary that is not determined by the number of FPNs issued according to council websites). The result is a system where enforcement success isn’t measured by cleaner streets, but instead by spreadsheet totals.

It’s a neat cycle, the contractor issues the fine, takes a share and transfers a portion to the council. The council in turn uses that income to 'support environmental services', a category conveniently vague enough to include the contract itself. This circular funding model creates a perverse incentive, more fines mean more funding mean more fines etc, and when every FPN helps justify next year’s budget, overzealous enforcement becomes not just possible, but highly profitable. It’s no coincidence that fine volumes often spike dramatically after a new private enforcement deal begins.

If this all sounds theoretical, ask the people who’ve been caught in it. A non-smoker in Manchester fined £433.00 for dropping a cigarette he never had; a Hertfordshire resident fined £500.00 because an envelope blew out of his bin; a Richmond woman fined £150.00 for pouring her coffee down a drain (later told she should’ve poured it into a litter bin instead).

It’s hard to tell which is more absurd, the enforcement itself or the excuses offered afterwards, and these aren’t isolated incidents; they’re symptoms of a system where 'environmental policing' has become performance-based revenue collection.

When challenged, councils say the fines are issued by private contractors; when pressed, the contractors insist they’re acting under the council’s direction and between them lies an accountability black hole where common sense goes to curl up and die. The Local Government Ombudsman has repeatedly criticised this blurred responsibility, noting that councils can’t outsource legal accountability, only the act of enforcement but that hasn’t stopped the industry growing.

The UK needs real environmental protection, not performative punishment. Enforcement should educate, correct and deter, not intimidate, but when compliance becomes a business model, fairness becomes optional and overreach becomes standard council policy.

Let’s be clear - this isn’t the fault of the enforcement contractors who are only doing exactly what they’ve been hired to do. The real issue lies with the councils themselves who have chosen to introduce and endorse this model. It’s a policy decision, not an accident.

It’s time to ask whether this isn’t just over-enforcement, but malfeasance: a deliberate exploitation of legal grey areas to generate revenue under the guise of regulation because enforcement has become a cash making business and the environment isn’t the one being protected, it’s the council's profit margin.

#WasteManagement #EnvironmentalPolicy #CommonSense #PublicAccountability #RichmondUponKafka - more like this (litter) - link - more like this (fines) - link