Abnormal loads 636/2024
FOI Reference: 636/2024
Request:
- Please provide statistics on the number of police and highway authority stops conducted in 2023 and 2024 to verify abnormal load movement order compliance? If possible, could you also provide data on the outcomes of these stops, such as the number of vehicles found to be non-compliant?
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 some 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 317 hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information Unit has been advised that the information requested is not held in an easily retrievable format and would exceed the appropriate time limit, i.e. 18 hours, to retrieve. This is due to the fact that a review of every Traffic Offence Report (TOR) recorded would be required in order to establish the offence recorded to determine the relevancy to the request.
It has been estimated that to individually interrogate each TOR would take approximately 4 minutes per case. It has been established that there are a total of 4,762 cases that would require interrogation. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:
2023 = 3,627 cases x 4 minutes = 241.8 hours
2024 (up to 25th June) = 1,135 cases x 4 minutes = 75.6 hours
Therefore, total time estimate to complete the request = 317.4 hours
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 23/07/2024)