E-Scooters (1413A/21)
Request
Please provide the following:
– The number of incidents recorded involving e-scooters, including location (Neighbourhood Policing Area) and type of incident between September 1st 2020 and September 30th 2021.
– The number of e-scooters seized by West Midlands Police between September 1st 2020 and September 30th 2021.
– The number of fines and total monetary value of fines given by West Midlands Police for illegally riding privately-owned e-scooters on public land, between September 1st 2020 and September 30th 2021.
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
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 your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see attached). 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.
REASON FOR DECISION
Please note that researching each individual case would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12). For question 1 we would need to conduct a key word search of relevant data in order to locate and retrieve this information, this search would exceed the FOI time limit.
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.