Flycapture Fly-Tipping Database

The majority of local authorities have regularly submitted data since 2004 to Flycapture which is the National Fly-Tipping Database, developed by Defra and the Environment Agency. It holds summary information on incidents that have been dealt with and actions which have been taken as well as a vehicle registration hot list. This encourages the joint working between the authorities.

The database logs the number of fly-tipping incidents that are dealt with by the Environment Agency and local authorities.

Funding to the Environment Agency to develop the Flycapture Database was provided by Defra because there had been no previous national statistics for incidents of fly-tipping so it was difficult to assess the scale of the problem. Flycapture is a legislative requirement under the anti-social behaviour act of 2003.

This requires that the Environment Agency and all waste collection authorities (in England and Wales) submit monthly returns for their reported fly-tipping incidents. This is so that national statistics can be compiled to give a more accurate picture of the size of the problem.

Flycapture is not meant to show a total picture of all fly-tipping as at current it does not collect data of incidents which are dealt with by private landowners and other organisations. Fly-tipping on private land seems to be a major problem.

In 2005/06 a report was conducted on behalf of the Environment Agency which estimated that the cost of clearing fly-tipping from agricultural land to be £47 million.

Data collected through Flycapture shows that on a national level 93% of fly-tipping takes place in urban local authorities. 63% of people in England live in these places. 77% of all fly-tipping happens in the 86 most deprived areas.

The first year that data on enforcement spending was available was 2006/07. It was then estimated that local authorities were spending £24.6 million on the enforcement action against fly-tipping (£17.8 million excluding Liverpool City Council data).

Throughout 2007/08 it was estimated at £16.8 million. Inspections carried out by local authorities to check for compliance with the waste duty of care grew from 25,745 in 2006/07 to 39,485 in 2007/08.

1.28 million incidents were reported during 2007/08 by authorities which is a 7.5% decrease in the number of incidents from 2006/07. They increased their enforcement action by 26% in 2007/08 from 2006/07. In 2006/07 local authorities carried out 1,371 prosecutions. 94% of these achieved a successful outcome.

In 2004/05 there were only 710 prosecutions. This suggests that the greater enforcement power contained within the clean neighbourhoods and environment act 2005 have had a significant effect.

The Flycapture enforcement training provided by the Environment Agency on Defra’s behalf also provided local authorities with the tools and knowledge to implement the appropriate enforcement action in response to fly-tippng incidents which they deal with.

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