Enforcement Strategy
From GPG
Contents |
Introduction
This page aims to see how the legal background to enforcement may be tailored to the needs of individual local authorities and to assess the benefits of formalising enforcement procedures. In doing so, it is necessary:
- To consider the pros and cons of establishing a formal strategy for enforcement;
- To assess how procedures should tie in with other elements of quality assurance, and;
- To look at different approaches to enforcement and how these might influence the content of a strategy
By the time a problem has arrived at the stage when enforcement is needed it is likely to have already accumulated a considerable history. Enforcements are by their very nature formal and although every case is different, it is important that an authority takes a consistent approach and is seen to apply the law impartially. Given that it is in some ways a last resort, the need to take enforcement action may not arise very often in most rights of way officer's day-to-day workload. The relative infrequency of application, coupled with the strict procedures which have to be followed can lead to particular challenges in achieving consistency throughout an authority's area.
Any enforcement procedure will also have to be open to public scrutiny and will inevitably be challenged. Although some authorities may have special officers who deal exclusively with enforcement issues, in many cases work of this type is dealt with by the same officer as issues of maintenance, although access may be available to specialised staff for, for example, legal advice. It is important therefore that a strategy is written in such a way that it makes sense to a non-specialist.
Producing an enforcement policy allows an authority to stand back from the immediate demands for action and to take the opportunity to look at examples of good practice already in use elsewhere. It also gives the authority the opportunity to tailor procedures to meet its own needs. Examples might include an authority that felt that too much of its officers' time was taken up with pursuing regularly occurring failures to reinstate public rights of way across arable land and wished to target repeat offenders.
Authorities are also, in general, sensitive to the claims of unfairness which inevitably arise from situations where they take action in one case, although there are many other similar cases where individuals can be seen to be apparently "getting away with it". An enforcement strategy gives the opportunity to formally prioritise cases so that available resources can be used most effectively.
Establishing an Enforcement Strategy
In the past, not all highway authorities have felt it necessary to go to the trouble of producing an enforcement strategy. Instead they have considered it adequate to provide individual officers with copies of the relevant adopted policies and with an element of training in their interpretation. If the authority was large enough, common practice might be handed down by word of mouth from longer-serving staff.
Increasingly, however, authorities are adopting a single strategy which draws all these elements together into one place. Before proceeding with this, and incurring the associated costs, it would be wise to consider the pros and cons to the authority of adopting this approach. These might include:
Pros :
- Makes time to review and update procedures
- Provides a public statement of the authority's policy - no one can claim ignorance
- Ensures uniformity of approach by all staff
- Allows the position of the authority' enforcement work in relation to its other rights of way functions to be analysed and understood.
Cons :
- The costs of production, consultation, publishing and up-dating
- Additional costs could be incurred in rectifying areas where policies were found to be outdated
- Implementation might require additional resources (eg. staffing levels)
- It could have a knock-on effect on other rights of way staff or departments
- The public's expectations might be raised
Content of the Strategy
A strategy for enforcement will need to pull together all the elements of policy and procedure which relate to this area of the authority's work. In most cases an authority will already have a series of policies, possibly of varying dates, but which taken together form the basis for the authority's approach to enforcement. In some cases these policies will have been brought together into one single statement, but it is likely that in some authorities the various policy documents will be scattered and to varying degrees missing or misunderstood.
The starting point, therefore, is to review all relevant existing policies and match these up against the authority's legal duties to see whether the policies are relevant and comprehensive.
Once you have identified the areas to cover and seen how these match up to existing policies, the next stage will be to identify those areas where the policy-base is outdated, fragmented or non-existent. It will be necessary to take steps to ensure that these areas are covered, preferably by drawing together into one consolidated suite of policies which can then be formally adopted by the authority through the appropriate mechanism.
At the same time as reviewing the policy-base, you will need to see how the authority's current procedures for taking enforcement match up against the existing policies. Do they cover all policy areas or are there cases where policies appear not to be being implemented? Have current practices drifted away from the agreed policies? Are procedures in place which cannot be linked to a specific policy? In carrying out this exercise, it might be useful to tackle it as a group activity involving officers who have practical experience of enforcement work to see what their perception of the situation might be - it may be surprising to discover, in authorities which do not already have an enforcement strategy, how much practices vary between individuals, teams or areas.
At the same time contact other authorities to see whether they have successfully tackled the same issues themselves and what examples they have which might assist in the task.
The content of a typical enforcement strategy might include:
- A summary of current legislation
- An assessment of current procedures
- An assessment of the authority's current resources and the potential impact of the new strategy
- A statement from elected members endorsing the strategy
- Time targets for dealing with aspects of work
- Procedures for publicising and up-dating the strategy
- Detailed criteria to be applied to different situations. These might include assessing any risk to the public, consequences of non-action, the seriousness of the offence and the relative importance of various types of offence
- A method for assessing the effectiveness of the strategy
- The interface with, and possible effect on, other sections within the authority (eg. Legal Dept.).
Identifying the Audience
Once you have assessed the situation and taken steps to sort out the policies, the next stage is to put pen to paper and draft the strategy. But before you do so, you should form a clear idea of the audience at whom the document will be aimed. Are they the authority's elected members, officers working in the field or members of the public? If the latter, are they users of rights of way or land managers?
The key stakeholders in the strategy should be invited to have some input into the strategy's creation, through consultation or Local Access Forums. In some cases it would be worth extending the consultation to include adjacent authorities to ensure consistency on cross-border routes - National Trails, for example.
The process may identify the need for a whole series of publications explaining the strategy and procedures to different audiences, and the means of publication too may vary depending on the audience. For example, a detailed procedural manual for the authority's staff published through its intranet, while specialised information on ploughing and cropping might be produced as a leaflet for distribution to landowners and occupiers.
Implementation and Publicity
If the statement you are drafting includes significant changes from existing arrangements, it will be necessary to assess what the financial and structural implications, if any, will be. Implementation of the strategy may require the employment of new staff or a change in role for existing employees.
The new strategy and any other documents arising from it will need to be brought to the attention, and kept in the minds of, its intended audience. For the authority's own staff, formal training sessions might provide the simplest method, allowing a consistent message to be given simultaneously to a number of staff who will thereafter be working largely independently. There would be benefits in making any training as inclusive as possible, by including staff who might not have direct involvement in enforcement, but whose own work might affect or be affected by the new approach. For example, staff with an involvement in assessing applications for diversions or extinguishments will need to see how these proposals impact on any likely future enforcement issues. Equally, applications to add routes to the Definitive Map may bring with them enforcement issues, the implications of which might benefit from early assessment against the strategy - eg. a long-standing building across an unrecorded route.
Finally you need to take steps to ensure that the strategy is kept up to date. This is best achieved by identifying in advance both dates and events (eg. changes in legislation) which would trigger a review of the strategy. As an authority's experience grows in certain areas of work, for example prosecutions, it may be necessary to review certain parts of the strategy ahead of others. It is also important to identify who "owns" the strategy so that there is no doubt who is responsible for ensuring it is kept relevant and available.
You may also wish to consider drawing up a promotional strategy to gain the most benefit from the process of making the public aware of the new strategy. This might, for example, include:
- Timing of the release - if crop obstruction is a major problem, the launch might be timed to coincide with patterns of cultivation
- Endorsement of the strategy by key individuals and organisations representing land managers
- Publicity at relevant events
- Radio and TV coverage, especially if a link can be made with the strategy's target audience
- Practical demonstration of, for example, satisfactory reinstatement standards.
- A series of press releases or events building up to the main launch of the strategy
An example of an enforcement strategy can be found in Hertfordshire County Council's Good Practice Guide
See Kent County Council's Enforcement Support Pack which draws together Kent's enforcement protocol and procedure with examples of practice; including blank documents/ forms and advice on contacting the rural payments agency.
