Agenda item
ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT PROVISION
- Meeting of Partnerships Scrutiny Committee, Thursday, 14 February 2019 10.00 am (Item 5.)
- View the declarations of interest for item 5.
To consider a report by the Built Environment and Public
Protection Manager (copy attached) the purpose of which is to consult with
members on the draft specification for
the contract for providing environmental crime enforcement contract. The report also outlines how the Council intends
to deliver and manage the new environmental enforcement contract.
10.05am – 10.50am
Minutes:
The Lead Member for
Housing, Regulation and the Environment introduced the Built Environment and
Public Protection Manager’s report (previously circulated) the purpose of which
was to consult on the draft specification of the contract for the provision of
environmental crime enforcement services for the county. Members were
briefed by the Lead Member on the background and the reasons why the Council
was seeking a new provider to deliver environmental crime services, following
Kingdom Security Limited’s decision to withdraw from their contract for
providing the service to the Council in August 2018. Prior to Kingdom’s
decision to withdraw from its contract with the Council it had become apparent
that some residents were not happy with the company’s approach to environmental
crime enforcement. Following Kingdom’s departure elected members had made
it clear that the focus of any future contract should be on enforcement
activities relating to dog fouling, with a particular emphasis on educating
offenders and residents on the dangers posed by dogs fouling and on the
importance of abiding with Public Space Protection Orders (PSPO) relating to
the control of dogs. Whilst the draft contract specification presented to
the Committee for consideration focussed on dog-related crime it did also make
provision for the appointed contractor to enforce against other environmental
crimes, such as littering, begging etc. The Lead Member stressed that
environmental crime enforcement services had never been delivered by the
Council in-house, therefore the cost of establishing and in-house service,
estimated to be between £200K and £250K, would be prohibitive. He also
advised that enquiries had been made with respect of the potential of
collaborating regionally to deliver environmental crime enforcement services,
however this would not be viable in the near future, although collaboration
with Conwy County Borough Council in relation to procuring environmental crime
enforcement services may be an option in the not too distant future.
Denbighshire’s draft contract specification had been shared with Conwy CBC with
a view to exploring the viability of tendering for services jointly in the
future.
Members were
advised by the Head of Planning and Public Protection that proposed new
approach for dealing with environmental crime was made up of three separate
elements:
·
communication
with the public to raise awareness and instil a sense of personal
responsibility, with a view to get community buy-in to the aims and objectives
of the anti-fouling strategy and this type of anti-social behaviour (ASB)
·
clean
and tidy streets, the work of the Streetscene team
and their proactive approach in notifying the Public Protection Service of
problem areas with a view to the Service targeting the area with posters and
leaflets
·
enforcement action (including
delivering educational sessions in schools and to community groups etc.)
The Built
Environment and Public Protection Manager advised that Kingdom had delivered
environmental crime enforcement services for Denbighshire for approximately 5
years. During that time the company’s contract with the Council had been
effectively managed and monitored by the Public Protection Officer:
Community Safety.
Responding to
members’ questions the Lead Member, Head of Planning and Public Protection, and
Built Environment and Public Protection Manager advised that:
·
the
decision to outsource the service and procure services from an external
provider had already been taken by Cabinet at its meeting in September 2018, the
purpose of the report to the Committee was to consult with members on the
contract specification;
·
the
Council’s Education Service was of the view that there was a gap in this type
of education within the county’s schools and that pupils would benefit from
learning about environmental crime and understating there, and their family’s
responsibilities in this area;
·
whilst
Kingdom Security Limited were operating in Denbighshire the county rated highly
on the street cleanliness index;
·
whichever
company was eventually successful in being awarded the contract, they would be
managed and monitored by the Public Protection Officer: Community Safety
in the same way as he had managed Kingdom Security Ltd;
·
costings etc. for a number of potential options
for delivering the service had been provided in the report presented to Cabinet
in September 2018. Members requested that a copy of this report be
circulated to them;
·
due to the very nature of the service delivering
it would never be easy, neither would it be a popular service to deliver.
If the Council decided to deliver this service itself, its reputation with the
public would suffer. However, there were private companies that did
deliver these types of services. Some ‘soft marketing’ testing had already
been done which had resulted in four or five companies showing an interest in
tendering to deliver the service in due course;
·
the
draft contract specification did stipulate that generally officers delivering
the service would wear “a distinctive non-black hi-visibility uniform of a
description that present a clear and friendly appearance to all sections of
society”;
·
once
the contract was let officers and representatives from the successful company
would visit all Member Area Groups (MAGs) with a view to introducing themselves
and interacting with local members in relation to their wards;
·
as part of the income generation aspect of the
draft contract specification the Council had considered the proposed delivery
model’s fixed costs and potential penalty sharing. With a view to securing a
deliverable service one potential option would be for the service provider to
keep 95% of the Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) with the remaining 5% being paid to
the Council. These were only indicative figures at present;
·
residents may also in future be able to assist
the Council to target dog fouling hotspots in the county by using a mobile
phone app that would enable them to take a photograph of an incident and send
it to the Council immediately with location details. Receipt of this type
of ‘live’ information would enable the Council to deploy appropriate resources
to those areas far quicker than was currently possible;
·
that the Council could take action with regards to
dog owners who did not comply with dog control orders in designated PSPO
areas. In other areas social media etc. could be used as a mode of
communicating with residents with regards to their duties and responsibilities
as dog owners;
·
when tendering for the contract the prospective
providers would be expected to draw-up a robust and viable business plan that
would ensure that they could deliver the service in line with the contract
specification. How they met their overheads and liabilities and generated
a profit would need to form part of their business plan;
·
to
withdraw from delivering the contract at a date in the future the provider
would be required to give the Council a month’s notice to terminate its
contract; and
·
they were confident that a number of interested
companies would bid for the contract once it was advertised. However, if
no interested bidder came forward the contract specification would be reviewed
Members suggested
that interaction with pupils in the county’s schools could also include
arranging poster competitions as a method of consolidating their learning and
communicating it to the wider community. It was also important to educate
children, particularly secondary school pupils, on how to responsibly dispose
of all types of litter, including fast-food packaging. The Committee also
stressed that close working and liaison between environmental crime enforcement
officers and local elected members was key in order to secure an effective
environmental crime enforcement service.
At the conclusion
of the discussion, having considered the report and its contents along with the
answers given to the questions raised, the Committee by a majority of 7 votes
to 3:
RESOLVED: - subject to the above observations –
(i)
to support the draft contract specification set
out in Appendices A and B to the report to enable officers to proceed to the
tender stage of procuring an external provider to deliver enforcement of
environmental crime services in the County; and
(ii)
that regular reports are
provided to each Member Area Group (MAG) on Environmental Crime Enforcement
activities in their area.
Supporting documents:
- Environmental Crime Enforcement Report 140219, item 5. PDF 240 KB
- Environmental Crime Enforcement Report 140219 - App A, item 5. PDF 252 KB
- Environmental Crime Enforcement Report 140219 - App B, item 5. PDF 293 KB