Kingdom 'litter police' under scrutiny on Panorama tonight

Readers who have followed Cllr John Duffy's attempts to get the Kingdom Ltd contract with Brent Council properly scrutinised LINK  LINK will be interested in tonight's Panorama (8.30pm BBC1 and then iplayer) which focuses on the company's operations.

Pre-broadcast publicity from the BBC  LINK states:

A private company acting as the "litter police" for dozens of councils pays officers a bonus for issuing fines, an undercover Panorama report has found.

One officer from Kingdom Services, a leading enforcement company, claimed that his bonus one month was £987.

Other officers were filmed handing out £75 fines for tiny pieces of dropped orange peel and poured-away coffee.

Kingdom told Panorama that its competency allowance was not a paid incentive for officers to issue fines. 

Littering is a crime, but if you pay the fine you can avoid a criminal record.

Councils are increasingly using private companies such as Kingdom, based in Cheshire, to enforce the Environmental Protection Act. 

Kingdom currently has about 28 contracts with local authorities and last year saw its profits jump 30% to £9m. 

The company frequently splits the proceeds of the fines with the councils.

Brent litter enforcement patrols recommended to be brought in-house

The Brent Cabinet is recommended to bring the litter patrol service, currently provided by Kingdom Limited in a pilot programme, in-house when the pilot finishes:

The pilot has been a helpful exercise and the performance has been shown to be good. Operating issues around the application of this type of service in Brent are now properly understood. The FPN (Fixed Penalty Notice) issue rate has exceeded projections, payment rates, income have been stronger than projected, and a number of ‘added value’ services have been successfully trialled. It is therefore recommended that the Council now plans to continue providing this service, beyond June 2017, on a long term basis. The review suggests that an in-house service, delivered along the same operating lines as the pilot contract, may offer the best long-term value for the council. 

Without any explicit reference to Cllr John Duffy's LINK concern that the Council was losing potential revenue through out-sourcing the service there is a recognition that, despite a greater risk to the Council, that an in-house service would generate greater income for the Council:

8. The issue is therefore to consider the likely surplus that the council would make if it ran the operation in house. Using the same figures for ticket issue and collection rates (which therefore implicitly assumes that the quality of service would be the same) the council could expect to issue 5,962 FPNs in a year (i.e. twice the amount issued in the pilot six months). The gross income for these would be £0.477m if all were paid.
   
   
9. The collection rate has been established, in paragraph 8.6, as being around 85%, so total income would be £0.405m. Paragraph 6.2 has set out that the likely cost of an in house team would be around £0.25m (£15k of which would be up-front, year 1 equipment costs only), which would imply a surplus under the in-house option of £0.155m. 
   
   
10. There is therefore a reasonable expectation of a modest additional surplus under the in-house model compared to the option of procuring a new contract. Provided that the reasonable expectation was that the operational performance of in house service would be at least as good as that provided by a private contractor then the financial evaluation would support a conclusion that the service should be provided in house.
    

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