Contravention of 20mph speed restrictions.

The request was successful.

Dear Northumbria Police,
I would be obliged if you would let me have sight of any written policy concerning the detection and/or prosecution of drivers contravening the twenty (20) speed limits within the Northumbria Police area for the past 3 (three) years

I would also be obliged if you could release details of the numbers of drivers prosecuted/cautioned for contravention of the 20mph limits.

Yours faithfully,

bob watson

Northumbria Police

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Thank you for your email received today in which you make a request for
information that Northumbria Police may hold in accordance with the Freedom
Of Information Act 2000

We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response should be
provided to you by 06/05/16 which is in accordance with the legislation.

Yours sincerely

Jan Mcewan
Disclosure Section

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

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Northumbria Police

1 Attachment

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

Thank you for your e mail dated 7 April 2016 in which you made a request
for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of
access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority
(including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:
I would be obliged if you would let me have sight of any written policy
concerning the detection and/or prosecution of drivers contravening the
twenty (20) speed limits within the Northumbria Police area for the past 3
(three) years
I would also be obliged if you could release details of the numbers of
drivers prosecuted/cautioned for contravention of the 20mph limits.

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I
provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the both
the Motor Patrols and Fixed Penalty Units of Northumbria Police. I can
confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria
Police however cannot be disclosed for the following reasons.
The information, particularly regarding prosecutions, is not held in an
easily retrievable format. There is no specific code for searching to see
if a prosecution for speeding related to 20mph or indeed any other speed
limit. In 2015 alone there were 2433 speeding offences which resulted in
prosecution. Each of those would require manual review to establish the
speed limit exceed. Even at a conservative estimate of 1 minute per
record, which we have considered as reasonable, we have estimated that to
locate and extract this information would take over 40 hours, therefore
Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act would apply. This section
does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information
if the authority estimated that the cost of complying with the request
would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00

You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Act
for that part of your request.

Although excess cost removes Northumbria Police's obligations under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied
information below, relative to your request, retrieved or available before
it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. 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.

The information provided is for the last 3 calendar years, 01/01/13 to
31/12/15.
6 Fixed Penalty notices have been issued for exceeding the 20mph speed
limit.

On this occasion we have supplied the procedure below as we have considered
no harm in its release. However you should note that this may not be the
case should further similar requests for disclosure of documents be made.

(See attached file: FOI 457-16 - Procedure.pdf)

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a
specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication
of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems
used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures
used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between
forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual
property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be
strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not
re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

You may be interested to know that Northumbria Police routinely publish
information via the Disclosure Log. The aim of the Disclosure Log is to
promote openness and transparency by voluntarily placing information into
the public arena.

The Disclosure Log contains copies of some of the information that has been
disclosed by Northumbria Police in response to requests made under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Whilst it is not possible to publish all responses we will endeavour to
publish those where we feel that the information disclosed is in the wider
public interest.

The Disclosure Log will be updated once responses have been sent to the
requester.

I have provided the relevant link below.

http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...

How to complain

If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have
handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue
informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our
complaints procedure, attached below

http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...

If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and
reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain
whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.

Yours sincerely

Michael Cleugh
Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor
Direct Dial: 0191 2956941

[NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED]NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

The information contained in this message and any attachment(s) is confidential and intended only for the attention of the named organisation or individual to whom it is addressed.  The message may contain information that is covered by legal, professional or other privilege.  No mistake in transmission is intended to waive or compromise any such privilege.  This message has been sent over public networks and the sender cannot be held responsible for its integrity.

If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken in reliance of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited, and is contrary to the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988 and of the Data Protection Act, 1998.

Any views expressed are those of the sender and, unless specifically stated, do not necessarily represent the view of Northumbria Police.

We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage sustained as a result of software viruses.  It is your responsibility to carry out such virus checking as is necessary.

If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by e-mail at once and delete the message immediately.

For more information about Northumbria Police please visit our website - http://www.northumbria.police.uk