FOI.23.004435.M - Escooter information

Request

1) Could you please tell me how many e-scooters (not e-bikes or any other form of electronic vehicle) were confiscated by your force in the following reporting periods? (NB if you do not record by quarter, please provide the total figure for each year instead).
2) Please could you tell me the dates between 2019 and the present day of any changes in policy regarding the confiscation of e-scooters by your constabulary? And what those changes were? (As an example: the Met police revised their policy on e-scooters “Operation Hornet”) twice in this period. In Nov ‘21 they moved from confiscations as standard to a policy of discretion, education and warning illegal users. And in June ‘22 they further updated their policy with regards to juvenile offenders to incorporate contacting juvenile offenders’ parents or guardians when they were stopped).
3) Please can you tell me the number of deaths involving e-scooters recorded by your force in the three completed quarters of this year 2023? (NB if you do not record by quarter, please provide the total figure for the year to date instead).

The Freedom of Information Act requires that this request is dealt with in a manner that is motive and applicant blind. A disclosure under this legislation is considered a disclosure to the world and is considered to be on the basis that it is in the public interest.

This response is unique to Humberside Police, and you are advised not to compare this like for like with any other force’s response you receive.

Response

Following liaison with several departments, the following information can be disclosed:

1) Regarding the confiscation of e-scooters, it has been advised that it is not possible to
retrieve this part of your request within the ‘appropriate limit’ (18 – hours). This is
because the information that you are requesting, specifically data on e-scooters is
not stored in a way which permits easy retrieval. Therefore, S12 of the Act applies.

Section 12 – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit. s1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ (18 – hours).

Activities that may be counted within our time estimations are:

• Determining if the information is held;
• Locating the information, or a document containing it;
• Retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
• Extracting the information from a document containing it.

The following have not been included within our calculations:

• The time spent identifying information to be exempted
• The time dedicated to the process of redaction.

Please take this as a refusal notice in accordance with section 17(5) of the Act which states; A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1),  give the applicant a notice stating that fact.

2) E-Scooters are not currently an overwhelming issue within our constabulary and therefore we do not hold a policy on the matter at present.

3) Zero.

Please note that police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide information and statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force’s response to your questions should not be used for the comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] or 01482 578662.

You can view our complaints procedure here.