Barnet Council's rubbish collection service has come under fire after it emerged three binmen face criminal charges for taking illegal handouts from traders.

A report by Barnet Council’s corporate anti-fraud team (Caft) into Street Scene, the council’s own bin collection service, found the refuse crew took cash from business owners for taking away rubbish when they either had no contract to do so, or the business owners already had too much waste.

The report also said Caft had CCTV footage of the deals taking place.

One crew member resigned after hearing of the investigation, another quit after being called for an interview and the third was sacked after a disciplinary hearing.

All three will appear at Willesden Magistrates Court on February 16 charged with abuse of position.

Barnet Council said it would not name the men while the criminal investigation was active.

The council also found a catalogue of poor practice and inappropriate activity, including the risk of nepotism in recruitment, broken CCTV, and council vehicles potentially being used for personal reasons.

This was uncovered in an internal audit of its bin collection service.

The also audit found the “process to ensure identification of personal relationships, close relatives and other personal conflicts of interest in relation to recruitment exercises where inadequate and ineffective.”

In one case, overtime payments earned by two Street Scene officers, potentially “close relatives”, were “inappropriately high.”

It also criticised staff for not being aware of work policy or protocol, and there was no adequate record of staff training courses or requirements.

The audit blamed the illegal payment scheme on a lack of awareness of protocol, failures by senior staff to check CCTV and a “limited rotation of operatives on waste collection routes”.

It also found checks on the mileage of council vehicles was inadequate, meaning there was no way of checking if they had been put to personal or inappropriate use.

In total, the audit made 24 recommendations to improve Street Scene.

These included updating the staff code of conduct to better identify vested interests, preventing staff appraisals being carried out by relatives, fitting trackers to all council vehicles and mending CCTV on vehicles and at Mill Hill waste depot.

A quarter of all cameras there – eight of 32 – were broken.

All of the recommendations were accepted and are either already implemented or are in the process of being put in.

Councillor Dean Cohen, chairman of environment committee, said: “The audit and Caft report highlights some very concerning findings about the improper conduct of a small number of staff within the Street Scene department, which have been discovered as a result of our own internal investigation.

“Residents deserve the highest levels of integrity from all the services they receive across every level of the council. Any evidence of malpractice and misconduct is taken extremely seriously, and we will take whatever steps necessary to stamp it out. We are taking immediate action to address the issues, including strengthening the management of the service.”