Uninsured Drivers 738/2024
FOI Reference: 738/2024
Request:
1) For the years 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24: the number of uninsured drivers that have been caught driving without insurance in your force area.
2) For the years 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24: the number of accidents that have involved uninsured drivers.
3) For the years 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24: the number of vehicles seized because they were uninsured.
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 of 1857.2 hours) to comply with part of your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information department has been advised that the information in respect of Question 1 of your request for the time period 12/05/23-31/03/24 is not held in an easily retrievable format. In light of this and in order to accurately obtain the information relative to your request for the time frame stipulated would involve Dyfed Powys Police accessing and reviewing all traffic offence reports, this is due to the implementation of new systems, so each record would have to be manually reviewed to ascertain if they related to no insurance offences.
It has been established that there are a total of 2859 records that cover the period 12/05/23-31/03/24. It has also been established that it would take a minimum of 4 minutes to review and obtain the information for a single record in respect of your request (as outlined above). The process outlined results in the below time estimate.
Question 2 of your request for the entire time period is not held in an easily retrievable format, this is due to the fact that Dyfed-Powys Police have on average 2000 RTCs recorded per year, and they would have to be manually reviewed to establish offences and if insurance was listed as an offence, which would take 10 minutes per record.
Q1: 2859 files x 4 minutes = 190.6 hours
Q2: 10000 records x 10 minutes = 1666.6 hours
Time estimate to complete task = 1857.2 hours
In accordance therefore 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 the Freedom of Information Unit. Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the public authorities right to cite exemptions if relevant.
Although excess cost removes the forces obligations under the Freedom of Information Act to provide any further information, as a gesture of goodwill, I have provided information, relative to question 1 & 3 of your request which has been easily retrievable and outlined below. 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.
Question 1 partial response
|
2019-2020 |
1140 |
|
2020-2021 |
1238 |
|
2021-2022 |
876 |
|
2022-2023 |
1082 |
|
Up to 12 May 2023 |
94 |
Question 3 response
|
2019-2020 |
799 |
|
2020-2021 |
723 |
|
2021-2022 |
568 |
|
2022-2023 |
406 |
|
2023-30/07/24 |
332 |
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.
Furthermore, it should also be noted that Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 09/08/2024)