FOI request (FOIR-291129325)

Litter prosecutions

Requested Mon 04 January 2021
Responded Tue 23 March 2021

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please could you provide me with the following information:

1. The number of prosecutions for dropping litter by the council, and the outcomes of those prosecutions, in each of the previous five calendar years (that is 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020).

2. The number of fixed penalty notices issued for dropping litter by the council and/or private contractors employed by the council in each of the previous five calendar years (that is 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020).

3. The number of fixed penalty notices for littering which were paid, unpaid or cancelled (and/or other relevant statuses) at the end of each of the previous five calendar years (that is 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020)?

4. The amount of money collected from these fixed penalty notices for littering in each of the previous five calendar years (that is 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020).

5. The number of prosecutions brought for non-payment of the FPNs for littering in each of the previous five calendar years (that is 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020)?

6. The annual expenditure by the council on littering enforcement in each of the previous five calendar years (that is 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020).

Please provide the response as a spreadsheet or CSV file.

Response

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

1.

2016 - None

2017 - 3 cases were sent to legal for consideration to prosecute.

2018 - None

2019 - None

2020 - None

In 2018 our legal team prosecuted nearly 400 people for failing to pay FPNs for litter issued by Kingdom Services who were contacted between 3 July 2017 and 2 July 2018.

2.

2016 - 52 FPNs

2017 - 24 FPNs

2018 - 30 FPNs

2019 - 28 FPNs

2020 - 27 FPNs

Kingdom Services issued 2693 FPNs for littering between 3 July 2017 and 2 July 2018 on behalf of HBC.

3.

2016 - 40 paid, 9 cancelled, 3 sent to prosecution/p>

2017 - 18 paid, 4 cancelled, 2 sent to prosecution

2018 - 22 paid, 8 cancelled

2019 - 24 paid, 4 cancelled

2020 - 17 paid, 9 cancelled, 1 on going

Hastings Borough Council does not hold data for the 2693 issued by Kingdom Services.

4.

2016-17 £5,797

2017-18 £11,732

2018-19 £18,935

2019-20 £9,800

The income for fixed penalty notices is not just for litter as we do not split it by type. The above amounts include all environmental fines such as dropping chewing gum, cigarette butts and fast food and also not cleaning up dog fouling.

5.

2016 - no information held

2017 - 5

2018 - 312

2019 - 0

2020 - 0

6.

Information not held - The warden role is multi-functional and we do not hold figures just for littering enforcement alone.