To provide information about the Council’s duties insofar as they relate to dog control with specific reference to the dog warden contract.

a. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA) requires every local authority to appoint an officer to discharge the function imposed by the Act relating to stray dogs. The officer may delegate that function.

The Act also allows the local authority to seize and detain stray dogs and any claimant must pay all expenses before a stray is returned. If the stray is not claimed it may be kept for 7 days and then disposed of by:-

The Council must keep a register of any strays they seize and people finding strays may take them to the Police or to the Council.

b. Under the Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act 1996 the Council has designated many areas of public and privately owned open land (e.g. Appley Park, Ryde, Brook Village Green, Parkhurst Forest car parks, Tennyson Down, Seaclose Recreation Ground) which, broadly, requires owners to clear up after their dogs if they foul that land.

c. The Council and its predecessors have made bye-laws which prohibit dogs from some beaches during the Summer months and from other specified areas (playgrounds, parks) permanently.

d. The Council has, by order, invoked some provisions of the Road Traffic Act which make it an offence for a dog to be on any road on the Island without it being on a lead.

The Dog Warden Service is currently provided by Animal Wardens Ltd; the contract runs for 3 years and started on the 1st October 2001. This contractor had held the contract for the 5 years previous to the current contract. Three operatives, each provided with a clearly marked van, are employed and the contractor provides administrative support in that callers are automatically diverted to the contractors office if they wish to make enquiries about the dog warden service or if they have any complaints about dog fouling or stray dogs etc. The cost to the Council of the contract is £196,300 (for the three years). The contract specification is not over-prescriptive and permits an amount of flexibility in our approach to dog control.

An officer in the Environmental Health Service is assigned to monitor the contract and monthly meetings are held with wardens and contractors management. In addition questionnaires are sent to users of the service to assess their satisfaction, or otherwise, with the service that has been provided.

Activity	1999/2000	2000/2001	2001/2002
Total complaints about dogs	1381	1916	1395
Complaints about dog fouling	311	320	236
Fouling prosecutions	51	-	-
Fixed penalty tickets for fouling	-	39	39
Strays seized	249	207	193

Following representations from the Magistrates Court the former Public Protection Committee decided that, rather than prosecute for each fouling offence, we could impose a fixed penalty from 1 April 2000. The Environmental Health Manager was given delegated authority to make the necessary arrangements and it was agreed that if an offender refused to pay the fixed penalty or if it was a second offence then a prosecution would be taken. The income from fixed penalties (recently increased from £25 to £50) is not retained by the Council but has to be paid to the Secretary of State. This is laid down in the Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act 1996 but it is understood that the Government is looking into proposals to allow Councils to plough money from fines back into enforcement. Previous awards of costs to the Council by Magistrates were rarely sufficient to cover our expenditure so the current system does not impose a heavier financial burden on us. Although the current system is working well, Members may wish to consider whether they would prefer a reversion to the original process of prosecution.

Since the first appointment of a dog warden on the Island in 1984, huge efforts have been made to improve the level of dog fouling. However not everyone clears up after their dog and there are some known trouble spots which we try to target. Our current approach is to concentrate on those known trouble spots whilst carrying out general patrols and responding to any other complaints.

The contractor carries out a survey annually to establish whether there has been a reduction in the number of trouble spots and whether there has been a reduction in the amount of fouling at those spots. A survey carried out by the contractor last autumn showed a significant improvement in both sections. The number of trouble spots where significant fouling occurs has been reduced from 20 to 16 in the last two years. They are:-

Dog waste bins are provided in recreation grounds and sea front areas by the Council. The Environmental Health Service has a budget for maintenance and/or replacement of bins but the opportunities to provide bins at new sites are rare.

Some Parish and Town Councils provide bins in consultation with the Environmental Health Service. The Operations Section of the Directorate of Corporate and Environment Services arranges and pays for the emptying of the bins by a contractor.

In most public surveys about Council services on the Island, dog fouling has come in the first 3 areas of concern.

Nevertheless a recent survey among local authorities (one third of England’s Councils responded) by the Keep Britain Tidy group revealed that only 191 people were prosecuted for dog fouling last year and that a number of Councils appear to be taking no action on dog fouling. 64 per cent of the respondents failed to take any prosecutions last year.

2. To identify any changes that the Select Committee views as appropriate in the Council’s approach to dog control.