Litter enforcement agency Kingdom put under microscope by BBC documentary

– for pouring coffee down a drain.

But it seems that such companies are here to stay, given the annual cost of more than £2bn to try to keep the UK’s streets clean.

Civil liberties group, the Manifesto Club, says the number of fines issued for littering has risen from 727 to more than 140,000 in England and Wales over the past decade, according to Freedom of Information requests made in 2015-16.

At the moment, Kingdom has around 28 contracts with local authorities and last year saw its profits jump 30% to £9m. Typically, the company splits the proceeds of the fines with the councils.

Allison Ogden Nash, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said: “Enforcement is one of the methods we can use to change people’s behaviour but it needs to be fair and it needs to have the public on our side.”

The undercover reporter also filmed a Kingdom employee telling how the company dropped its arrangement with two councils because they were not “hardline” enough.

Kingdom told Panorama that its competency allowance was not a paid incentive for officers to issue fines.

It claimed the allowance was discretionary and only paid if officers met all their basic competencies. Kingdom said it provided local authorities with a cost-effective service and helped to keep Britain tidy within the law.