On 25 February, peers passed an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to ban fining for profit for ‘busybody’ offences.
The amendment states that companies ‘must not receive, directly or indirectly, any financial benefit that is contingent upon the (a) issuing of a fixed penalty notice, or (b) the number or value of fixed penalty notices issued’.
This would mean that ‘payment per fine’ contracts – under which over 14,000 penalties are issued each year – would be declared invalid.
Council ‘busybody’ powers (Public Spaces Protection Orders, and Community Protection Notices) have led to new bans on activities such as feeding the birds, standing in groups, or having a messy garden. These offences can be punished by on-the-spot fines.
Penalties are currently issued at a rate of over 20,000 a year. Around 75% of PSPO penalties are issued by private enforcement companies who are paid per fine.
Generally the companies receive around 80-90% of penalty income, which means that they have a direct incentive to issue as many fines as possible (indeed, they need to issue a certain number of fines merely to cover costs).
The Crime and Policing Bill will dramatically increase penalties for PSPO and CPN offences from £100 to £500 (Clause 4). Lord Clement Jones’ amendment to Clause 4 would prevent private enforcement from profiting from the price hike.
Introducing the amendment, Lord Tim Clement Jones said:
Under Clause 4, the Government are pushing ahead with a 400% increase to the maximum FPN for these breaches, raising it from £100 to a punitive £500. Without statutory safeguards, this will simply supercharge a system that is already widely abused. This new clause addresses the deeply concerning practice of fining for profit. It stipulates that neither an authorised person nor their employer may retain any financial benefit from the fixed penalty notices that they issue. Environmental and ASB enforcement is increasingly seen as a business. Local authorities are entering into contracts with private companies, boasting of “zero financial risk” while sharing the “surplus revenue” generated by fines. Guidance and formal representations are entirely inadequate when faced with the modern enforcement market. This creates a direct perverse financial incentive to issue as many tickets as possible for innocuous actions.
Supporting, independent peer Baroness Claire Fox said:
There are concerns that antisocial behaviour orders have been corrupted for income generation and commercial purposes. With fines increasing so much under this Bill, surely that tendency will be turbocharged. I think it is something that the Government will want to tackle, because all the orders in Clause 4 being issued at such a low benchmark are likely to result in fines going up. I am worried that this will encourage councils to become trigger-happy with orders. Such scam-like behaviour of taking fines for profit discredits and trivialises a serious approach to tackling anti-social behaviour. This is a chance for the Government to row back on this.
Conservative peer Lord Cameron of Lochiel, said:
Parking firms and, indeed, councils using fines based on spurious violations simply to make money is surely not right. Where a person has violated the rules, of course the use of penalty charge notices is justified, but we should not allow them to unfairly issue fines to those who do not deserve it.
The amendment passed with Liberal Democrat and Conservative support, 205 votes to 188.
Josie Appleton, director of the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life, commented on the successful vote:
It’s bad enough that councils have created so many absurd new crimes – if these are punished at the hefty rate of £500 by private enforcement officers on commission, we have a recipe for mass injustice. This amendment would provide a basic assurance that PSPO enforcement is not driven by the profit motive. It’s strange to see Labour peers blocking a change that would protect ordinary people from being unfairly slapped with fines by profiteering private companies, especially when these companies have wrecked such havoc in Labour areas. I hope the government thinks again and accepts this important amendment, which should be very much in tune with Labour values.