Corporate Enforcement Policy

When this is undermined, the Council is able to use legal powers to protect communities from harm. Many of the services within the Council carry out enforcement duties. These range from support and advice to encourage compliance, to the serving of notices requiring people to carry out certain actions, to the issuing of penalty notices, to the obtaining of injunctions to prevent the carrying out of certain activities or then to prosecution. Effective enforcement has an important role to play in helping the Council achieve the objectives of the Community Strategy.

Enforcement in Rhondda Cynon Taff is carried out by a wide range of Council service areas such as:

• Children’s Services (including care orders, emergency protection orders and non-school attendance);
• Community Estates (including rent arrears and trespass);
• Education (including fraudulent benefit claims);
• Environmental Health (including food hygiene, health & safety, housing, pollution control and smoking);
• Finance (including business rates and council tax enforcement);
• Highways (including highways obstruction, skips and scaffolding);
• Land Reclamation (including land drainage and mines & quarries);
• Licensing (including alcohol, animal establishments, gambling, public entertainment and taxis);
• Parks and Countryside (including parks bylaws, public rights of way and tree preservation orders);
• Planning and Building Control;
• Street Care (including dog fouling, fly tipping, fly posting, littering, trade & domestic waste);
• Trading Standards (including animal health, fair trading, food safety, product safety and weights & measures);
• Transportation (including car parks and off street parking enforcement);

This Corporate Enforcement Policy is intended to establish a uniform approach to enforcement throughout the Council, without placing too onerous a burden on local businesses, organisations, consumers, and the public. The policy has been developed in accordance with the principles of the Enforcement Concordat and Regulators’ Compliance Code, together with the aim of clearly setting out the Council’s approach to enforcement of its legal powers.

The aim of the policy is to provide guidance for officers, businesses, consumers and the public by clearly setting out the Council’s approach to enforcement, to support the delivery of our Community Strategy. 

The objectives of the policy are to ensure that all enforcement activities are:

• Undertaken in accordance with the principles of good enforcement specified by the Enforcement Concordat.
• Compatible with the convention rights specified by the Human Rights Act 1998, to protect the rights of the individual.
• Managed in an efficient manner.
• Taken promptly and without unnecessary delay.
• Undertaken consistently by all services of the Council.
• Undertaken in a fair, independent and transparent manner, with each case being considered on its own merits.
• Not influenced by colour, ethnic origin, race, gender, disability, sexuality, religion, marital status, gender, age or political beliefs.
• Not influenced by improper or undue pressure from any source or by inappropriate or illegal practices by the officer.
• Aligned to the Council’s Community Strategy and to each service’s Business Plan.

Council enforcement activities will need to have regard to:

• The principle in the Local Government Concordat on Good Enforcement;
• The principles in the Regulators’ Compliance Code (for certain functions identified by the Legislative and Regulatory Functions Act);
• The evidential and public interest tests in the Code for Crown Prosecutors;

The policy includes the following range of enforcement options that are available to Council officers:

• Informal action and advice;
• Statutory notices;
• Fixed Penalty Notices, Penalty Notices for Disorder, Penalty Charge Notices and Excess Charge Notices;
• Seizure and forfeiture proceedings;
• Injunctive actions;
• Refusal, revocation, review and suspension of licences and permits;
• Prohibitions;
• Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation orders;
• Civil sanctions under the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act;
• Simple cautions;
• Prosecutions;

If any citizen or trader has any queries about how this Corporate Enforcement Policy has been applied in a particular situation when a Council enforcement officer has taken or proposes to take enforcement action in relation to them, they should contact the manager of the team in which that officer is based. The enforcement officer will be able to provide the contact detail for the relevant manager.