Fining for profit is when private companies are employed to issue fines, and are paid per fine issued.
Such blatant incentives lead to all kinds of dodgy practices – wardens following people, issuing fines to people who dropped an item by mistake, or even to people who did not do anything at all.
The Manifesto Club has campaigned against fining for profit for over a decade. In 2017, we collaborated on a Panorama programme, Inside the Litter Police, which revealed the shady practices of private enforcers. Wardens boasted that they handed out fines ‘like Smarties’, and were given a bonus of up to £1000 a month for ‘hitting’ lots of tickets.
We collaborated with citizens’ groups such as North Wales Against Kingdom Security, who sought to kick private enforcement out of their areas.
In the wake of this, Defra realised they had a problem. In 2019 the department released guidance that stated
in no circumstances should enforcement be considered a means to raise revenue
The guidance also prohibited the ‘payment per fine’ model. It said that:
private firms should not be able to receive greater revenue or profits just from increasing the volume of penalties, since this runs contrary to the overall aim of reducing the number of offences committed.
Yet there was a problem with this guidance: it was not enforced.
In fact, today the majority of penalties are issued on the ‘payment per fine’ model, and therefore in direct violation of the guidance.
Our report in 2022 found that there are now 10 companies competing on the private enforcement market (up from 3 a few years before), and that in 90% of cases these companies are paid per fine or given some other direct incentive.
In response, the last government said that it would make the guidance statutory. That means that if you were issued an FPN by a company paid on commission, you could appeal that penalty in a court on the basis that it was illegal.
This statutory guidance, hopefully, would have meant the end of fining for profit.
In February last year, a Defra spokesperson confirmed that:
The Environment Act 2021 will allow us to place our current litter enforcement guidance on a firm statutory footing, giving those to which it applies a clear and explicit duty to have regard to it when exercising their enforcement functions. We have committed to doing so in the Environmental Improvement Plan and will provide further details in due course.
But now, with the new government, there is a danger that this statutory guidance will be dropped – and that fining for profit will continue unabated.