Accredited Persons Scheme

I would be grateful if you could provide me with the following information. The request is made under the Freedom of Information Act. I have consulted with the ACPO FOI Central Referral Unit in formulating this request.

Under the Police Reform Act 2002, Chief Constables have the authority, under the Accredited Persons Scheme, to grant powers to issue Fixed Penalty Notices for a number of offences.

1. Can you please advise me if your force have granted such powers, the date this was given and provide a list of all occupations who are accredited to currently issue a FPN.

2. For the financial year 2008-9, please also provide statistical information on the number of FPN's issued by such persons, broken down by each occupation and brief details of the reported offences where possible.

In accordance with section 1 (1) (b) of the Act our response is provided below;

Please note that for ease I have numbered your questions.

1. Powers were first granted in 2005 to VOSA (Traffic Examiners) and extended to Chester City Council (Chester Wardens) in 2008.

2. To obtain this information would require all the tickets issued to be searched manually to ascertain who had issued them, therefore it is estimated that this would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit is defined in the Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004, which is covered by statutory Instrument Number 3244 of 2004. Furthermore, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows a public authority to refuse to respond to a request for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit as defined by the above mentioned regulations.