3rd Party Reporting of Motoring Offences (597A/23)
Request
I am contacting you to make an FOI request regarding third party reporting, where video footage, either from a dashcam or a cyclecam, has been included with the report.
If possible, can you please provide me with the following information, for third party reports, submitted from 1st Jan 2022 until 31st Dec 2022:
1. The total number of reports submitted, via the Nextbase portal, against the following class of vehicles, by A Cyclists, B Drivers, and C Others:
a. Goods vehicles 7.5t and above (LGV).
b. Passenger Carrying Vehicles (PCV).
c. Vans, excluding car derived vans.
d. Cars, including car derived vans.
e. Motorbikes
f. Others
2. The outcome of these reports, as follows:
a. The number of reports that resulted in a notice of intended prosecution (NIP) being issued.
b. The number of reports where no further action (NFA) was taken.
c. The number of reports rejected for other reasons.
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide all of this information within the appropriate (cost) limit of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘REASON FOR DECISION’ below).
However, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to question 2 of your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see as follows). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of the request.
2. The outcome of these reports, as follows:
a. The number of reports that resulted in a notice of intended prosecution (NIP) being issued.
b. The number of reports where no further action (NFA) was taken.
c. The number of reports rejected for other reasons.
| Outcome | Sep22 | Oct22 | Nov22 | Dec22 |
| NIP | 105 | 91 | 78 | 42 |
| NFA | 325 | 341 | 284 | 177 |
| Other | Recorded under NFA | |||
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.
REASON FOR DECISION
Q1 – It is not possible to determine this information without manually reviewing each and every one of the 6000+ submissions over this period to see what is stated. Such a search however, even allowing a bare minimum of one minute per record, would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
Q2 – For the first eight months of 2022 we operated using a paper record system for submissions and moved to a digital means of recording from September onwards. As a result, although we have been able to provide the requested information for September onwards (see above), to provide information prior to this time would mean again a physical review of each of the paper records to see what the outcome was. Such a search, as per q1 above, would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that the cost of compliance with the whole 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 would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12(1) of the FOI Act 2000. For West Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450, as prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here:
https://www.college.police.uk/app/information-management/freedom-information#fees-and-charges
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