Agenda item

The Head of Worcestershire Regulatory Services presented a report on the WRS Enforcement Policy 2023.

Board Members were informed that in 2011, the then Joint Committee had agreed to support the adoption of a single WRS Enforcement Policy that the service would use in relation to all its activities.

This policy would be an adjunct to other enforcement policies that each partner authority had for its remaining enforcement activities. Being based on the requirements of the then Regulator’s Compliance Code, the policy would not have contradicted any approach being taken by partners in other areas of enforcement such as planning.

In 2016, when the partnership became a district only arrangement, the Head of WRS had made minor amendments to the policy and had asked Members of the Joint Committee to ratify the policy and to recommend adoption by the six councils.

Local authorities were encouraged to produce Enforcement Policies for many years so that those sectors they regulated knew understood what to expect. This was originally driven by the introduction of the Enforcement Concordat, created by LACORS, the Local Government Association’s Regulatory Policy support body for member authorities, and built upon by the Regulator’s Compliance Code, issued by the Better Regulation Executive, under the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006.

As detailed in the report, the original Regulators Compliance Code was replaced with the Regulator’s Code. The core of the new Code had changed little from the original Regulators Compliance Code, but some aspects were clarified and tidied up. Whilst this had not changed since the last review, the Head of WRS had felt that reviewing this policy every three to five years and bringing it back to Members, ensured that they were aware of the processes that the service followed during regulatory decision making and that this would provide Members with the reassurance that the service was taking a fair and equitable approach when dealing with offending. This was particularly important with the significant number of new members who had recently joined the WRS Board for 2023/2024; and probably even more relevant given the number of newly elected Members across the partners who are new to local government.

The Head of WRS further explained that before putting a case before the Courts, local authorities also needed to have regard to the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which lay down the very basic provisions in its two tests of evidential sufficiency and public interest before a case could be considered a sound candidate to be taken to Court.

Whilst WRS officers prepared the case file and evidence, with Team Managers or the Head of Service making recommendations on action, the delegation in relation to the instigation of legal proceedings meant that the final decision on whether a matter went to court sat with the relevant Head of Legal Services and their delegated officers. This separation mirrors what occurred between the Police and Crown Prosecution Service and ensured that local authorities complied with the separation of investigatory and prosecuting roles envisaged in the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996.

Improved consistency was something that businesses craved, so there was a level playing field for all of those in competition. Businesses had complained on occasion about the alleged inconsistencies in enforcement between local authorities, although the LGA had always challenged this and the responses containing real evidence had been limited. By adopting a common approach to enforcing the functions discharged by WRS, partners would directly address these concerns of the business community and show that WRS remained a tool that local authorities could use to support their economies in a positive way.

In previous years, WRS had asked Members to take this back to the partner authorities for adoption locally, so that it sat alongside any other enforcement policies operated by other enforcement services within the partners, however in the absence of any changes to the document, this was not necessary on this occasion.

Members were asked to note that the policy, as attached at Appendix 1 to the report, met the criteria of both the Regulators Code and the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which should allow it to easily integrate with existing policies within the partner authorities so that the service could continue to operate in a consistent way across the County.

RESOLVED that the continued use of the Enforcement Policy 2023, as attached at Appendix 1 to the report, be agreed; in order to support decision making within WRS.