New ASB Reporting Rules for Councils in England and Wales

On legislation.gov.uk, the Anti-social Behaviour (Provision of Information) Regulations 2026 look technical at first glance. But the change is easy to state: councils in England and Wales will have to send the Home Office regular data on anti-social behaviour, rather than keeping that picture largely local. The regulations were made by Home Office minister Sarah Jones on 12 October 2026, laid before Parliament on 14 October 2026, and are due to come into force on 4 November 2026. That matters because this is not a new offence or a new power aimed directly at residents. It is a reporting duty, designed to show ministers what councils are being told, what action they take, and where patterns are building.

In the legal wording, the bodies covered are 'specified relevant authorities'. In practice, that means local authorities under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. From the start date, each council must send information to the Secretary of State for every six-month reporting period, with the first return covering the first six months after 4 November 2026. **What this means:** Whitehall is asking for a regular, standard set of numbers from every council area. If you have ever wondered why anti-social behaviour can feel huge in one neighbourhood yet oddly invisible in national debate, this is an attempt to make local experience easier to count and compare.

The regulations also require councils to sort reports into shared categories. These include drug-related incidents, vehicle-related nuisance, environmental anti-social behaviour, noise, intimidation or abuse, vandalism or graffiti, neighbour-related anti-social behaviour, alcohol-related incidents, dangerous or uncontrolled dogs, and a final catch-all group for other cases. That may sound administrative, but it changes the quality of the picture. A complaint about repeated harassment is not the same as a complaint about littering, revving engines or late-night noise. When councils classify incidents in the same broad way, residents, journalists and campaigners have a better chance of seeing which problems are rising and which responses are actually being used.

One of the most important parts concerns ASB case reviews. These reviews are meant for situations where someone feels repeated reports have not been taken seriously enough and agencies need to look again at the response. Under the new rules, councils must report how many applications they receive, how many reviews they carry out, how many applications they refuse, and the reasons for refusal. They must also report how many completed case reviews led to a formal recommendation. **Why that matters:** raw complaint numbers tell you how much anti-social behaviour is being reported, but case review data tells you something else as well. It shows where people felt ignored, where a process was triggered, and whether that process led to action.

The schedule goes further than complaints. Councils must also report how often they apply for anti-social behaviour-related orders and how often those orders are made. That includes criminal behaviour orders, as well as civil tools under the 2014 Act such as respect orders, youth injunctions and housing injunctions. They must also count community protection warnings, community protection notices and fixed penalty notices linked to breaches. For fixed penalties connected to community protection notices, councils must say how many were issued and how many were set above £250. That detail tells us the Home Office is not only interested in whether powers are used, but also in how forcefully they are being used.

Councils will also have to report closure notices and closure orders, along with public space protection orders and expedited orders. These are some of the strongest place-based powers in the anti-social behaviour system because they can restrict access to particular spaces or respond to activity attached to a location. The regulations ask for another layer of detail here too. For fixed penalty notices connected to public space protection orders, councils must say how many were issued, whether they were issued by the council itself or by a person it authorised, and how many carried a penalty above £250. If you care about accountability, that distinction is useful: it shows not just enforcement levels, but who is doing the enforcing.

For residents, the best case is simple. Better reporting can make it harder for problems to be shrugged off, hidden in vague categories or handled without any public trail. If your area has persistent noise, harassment, graffiti or street drinking, these returns could give councillors and local communities firmer ground when they ask what has actually been reported and what happened next. But we should be careful with the numbers too. More recorded incidents do not always mean an area has suddenly become less safe; they can also mean reporting routes improved or councils recorded cases more consistently. Data can help you ask sharper questions, but it does not answer every question by itself.

There is one more accountability point worth keeping in view. The explanatory note says no full impact assessment was produced for this instrument on its own, although there was one for the wider Crime and Policing Act 2026 package. So while the reporting duty may improve visibility, it will still need scrutiny to show whether it improves response on the ground. If you want to follow this locally, the practical test is straightforward. Does your council publish anti-social behaviour data in a way residents can actually read? Are refusals of ASB case reviews explained clearly? And when enforcement powers are used, are they being used fairly across different neighbourhoods? The regulations give ministers more information every six months. The next step is making sure the public can use that information too.