Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 27
27
Accepted
Defra told us that “Local authorities have the responsibility to deal with fly-tipping” while Defra’s...
Recommendation
Defra told us that “Local authorities have the responsibility to deal with fly-tipping” while Defra’s role is to support authorities and provide tools for carrying out this work. However, Defra’s statutory guidance presents a less straightforward picture of local authority responsibilities. Local authorities have a duty to keep specified land clear of refuse, and can be taken to court to ensure they clean up such refuse within a reasonable time.98 Investigation and enforcement are steps that local authorities can choose to take; they are not themselves duties on the authority.99 Local authorities have many different priorities to balance, and their spending on non-social care services fell by 24.8% in real terms between 2010–11 and 2019–20. The Local Government Association believes that local authorities will only recover around half their costs, even after a successful prosecution. Between 2014–15 and 2020–21, the proportion of fly-tipping incidents investigated by local authorities fell from 35% to 28%.100 In 2020–21 Sandwell and Hackney Councils recorded 24,000 fly-tipping incidents between them, issued 31 and 150 fixed penalty notices, respectively, and undertook no prosecutions.101 A submission from academic crime scientists argued that authorities could do much more with their information about fly-tipping to inform prevention.102
Government Response Summary
The government will work with the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group (NFTPG) to develop a toolkit for local authorities, with the first part on prosecutions already published and the second part on partnerships expected in early 2023; will also build on existing resources on the NFTPG website.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
5. PAC conclusion: Defra is not doing enough to support local authorities to tackle fly-tipping. 5. PAC recommendation: Defra should work with local authorities to set a clear national framework for tackling fly-tipping, setting overall expectations and promoting good practice, while allowing local authorities the flexibility to respond to local circumstances. 5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation Target implementation date: December 2023 5.2 The government supports local solutions for local problems. This is particularly relevant in dealing with fly-tipping problems, which require a local approach tailored to the community in which the problems occur. The role of central government is to enable and support this local action. Indeed, the government has previously strengthened local authority enforcement powers such as by providing councils with powers to issue fixed penalty notices. 5.3 Going forward, the department has already committed to working with the National Fly- tipping Prevention Group (NFTPG), which includes representatives from several local authorities, to develop a fly-tipping toolkit. The toolkit will help share best practice on a range of issues related to tackling fly-tipping. The first part of the toolkit, on presenting robust prosecutions, was published earlier this year. 5.4 Work on the next part of the toolkit, how to set up effective anti-fly-tipping partnerships, has already commenced. The government expect this will be published in early 2023. 5.5 This toolkit will build on the range of resource already available on the NFTPG website that are designed to support local authorities and others in tackling fly-tipping. This includes a communications toolkit to help local authorities raise awareness among residents of their household waste duty of care, guidance on roles and responsibilities and numerous case studies detailing a range of interventions. Further case studies will be added in 2023 following the completion of local authority projects funded by the department’s fly-tipping intervention grant scheme, which saw grants totalling over £450,000 awarded across 11 local authorities.