E-Scooters (159A/24)
Request
Please could you provide me with details for the last three years (2023/2022/2021) about:
1. the number of e-bikes seized by your police force, broken down per year.
2. the number of e-scooters seized by your police force, broken down per year.
If it is possible, can you specify how many of those e-bike and e-scooters were deemed:
1. illegal to be ridden on public roads.
2. had been modified to exceed legal limits.
If that data could be broken down per year, I would be very grateful.
Also, would it be possible to say what has happened to them since they were seized? How many each year were destroyed, scrapped, remain impounded or were auctioned off?
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). We are unable to give the reasons for the seizures as we would need to interrogate every log. Assuming each log would take 5 minutes to review that would equate to in excess of 39 hours and would exceed the FOI time limit. In addition, due to the specificity of the questions, it`s unlikely that the logs would contain all of the requested details.
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.