Licence plate offences 387/2025

FOI Reference: 387/25

Request:

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request the following information for the last three years in which the information is available.

The total number of Fixed Penalty Notice and court fines which were given for licence plate offences, specifically the offence related to the Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001 under section 11.

Clarification: Instances in which an individual was stopped by an officer and issued with a Traffic offence report

Response:     

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.

Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed-Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

(a) states that fact,

(b) specifies the exemption in question and

(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information you have requested. However, we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12(1) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Section 12 (1) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(1) states: “…Section 1 (1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The cost of providing you with the information requested in respect of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum 224 hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located @ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244

The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to your request for Traffic Offence Reports (TOR) is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that, due to the implementation of NICHE (new police computer software initiated on the 13^th May 23) we are unable to search for specific offences. Therefore, each TOR would need to be reviewed to identify if there is any information relevant to your request.

It has been established that there are a total of 4,472 records that would require individual interrogation and it has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 3 minutes to research each individual record. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

13^th May 2023 – 31^st Dec 2023 – 2,211 cases x 3 minutes per case = 110.5 hours

2024 – 2,261 cases x 3 minutes per case = 113 hours

Total time estimate to complete whole request = 224 hours

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact.

You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours.

Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.

Although excess cost removed the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.

Response:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.

The number of individuals stopped by an officer and issued with a TOR is:

2022 – 148 cases

Up to 12th May 2023 – 25 cases

The number of individuals issued with a conditional offer which consists of a fine (similar to a FPN) for the licence plates offences were:

2022 – 167

2023 – 105

2024 – 128                                             

It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 16/04/2025)