Littering and Flytipping: Is Brent Council's claim of improvement justified?

On Tuesday next week, the day after Full Council Budget Setting, the  Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny is considering the performance of contractors on flytipping and littering.

The officers' report states:

It is recommended that the committee note improvements made through performance monitoring of Veolia contract, reporting through FixMyStreet portal, enforcement actions undertaken and the wider impact of Don’t Mess with Brent campaign on fly tipping and littering.

However, some of the information in the report undermines the claim:

FLYTIPPING 

The above graph appears to suggest a rise in the actual amount of flytipping compared with last year.
 

The decrease in the number of reported flytips follows the change to having to log-in to report on FixMyStreet but the report argues:

The decrease in fly-tip reporting since August 2025 is mainly attributed to the removal of anonymous reporting feature on the platform. This action was necessitated due to receipt of several inappropriate messages received on the platform. Although there is a decrease in reporting, the change has resulted in the improvement of standards of reports made.

Fewer reports but a higher standard - how does the latter improve the flytipping problem? 

On the issue of who does the reporting of flytipping the figures show the public is by far the most active, although that has not stopped the Leader of Brent Council apparently editing the App for some self promotion beyond what one would expect from a non-political App. Should the public start doing some private promotion when they report?

 
 Of course there are many more public than councillors or staff but the trend is significant. 

Officers write;

What we can observe from the table above is that total number of street cleansing and fly-tipping reports were initially being made by staff in the 2023/24 financial year. This largely reflects the early introduction of FixMyStreet. But gradually we can see significant decreases in staff reporting in the following financial years. This indicates a reduced reliance on intermediary reporting by staff and demonstrates FixMyStreet becoming embedded as a self-service channel for residents.

STREET SWEEPING

Brent has moved from a regular street sweeping schedule (what the report terms 'a rigid street cleansing schedule) to  'intelligence-based'. This means residents have to report when their street needs sweeping.

Since its introduction, an average 750 street cleansing reports are created per month with 25,450 total reports created since April 2023 with residents making 83% (21,107) of the total number of reports. Highlighting strong resident engagement with this category.

But are our streets  cleaner?

The report is very positive about the impact of the FixMyStreet App. It notes that the current contract ends in October this year and a procurement timeline needs to be organised.

ENFORCEMENT 

In the calendar year 2025 Brent Environmental Enforcement generated £426,000 in income from littering and flytipping mixed penalty notices. There has been substantial press publicity and council publicity to highlight the cost to individuals or commercial premisies. A number of cases studies are reported.

We were worst in the country for fly-tipping in 2024. We will be in the 23rd position this year. This is a significant improvement.

•   We have tripled our enforcement officers from 6 to 18

•   We continue to take a zero-tolerance approach to fly-tipping and have more than doubled the amount of fines we have handed out. With over 5,700 fines handed out to people that are ruining our streets.

•   Our fines are the highest they legally can be and are a deterrent to thosec onsidering leaving a mess in the public realm.

  Communications: Our approach has been multi-faceted, but has focused mainly on messages around zero-tolerance across the whole borough.