FOI - frequently asked questions

Q. Under the Freedom of Information Act I request to see how many cars are caught speeding by each and every speed camera in Thanet every month for the past 12 months.

A. The Partnership does not issue how many tickets were given at each camera or to which vehicle. This information is exempt under section 31 (law enforcement) of the Freedom of Information Act which requires a 'prejudice' test. People may also take advantage by speeding at sites where less tickets are being issued and thus lead to unlawful behaviour and physical harm, this is prejudicial to public safety. Also this information is exempt under section 38 (health and safety) - providing detailed programmes of where a camera is 'live' or when a mobile site will be in use could lead to an assault or pre-planned attack.

However, on our website under the 'Partnership' then 'finances' icon is a list of all fixed penalties issued by district.

Q. A temporary mandatory speed limit has been imposed on the A228 West Malling By-pass enforced by mobile safety camera vans. Please would you let me know how many offences have been reported by these vans each week since enforcement commenced.

Additionally, please would you let me know the procedures that are carried out to ensure the accuracy of these cameras each time they have been set up and advise whether these procedures have been verified during the period in question.

Please would you let me know the dates of verification and any dates when verification has not been possible.

A. Kent County Council has asked the Partnership to enforce its temporary limit while they carry out thier road works. Numbers of offences from individual cameras is exempt on the grounds of Law Enforcement and Health and Safety. We can give such information out for road work sites but only after the works have been completed.

All cameras are calibrated by the manufacturer on an annual basis. Furthermore as our operators visit different sites the cameras are set up within the van and further checks are carried out. On moving to a new location the check is repeated. records of each check, daily and each site, are recorded by the operator.

If a camera fails its own calibration checks then it shuts down and cannot be operated. Of course if our operators suspect a fault or are not happy with any calibrations or checks that they make then they will not use the device and will send it to the supplier for repair.

Q. 1. Can you provide me with details of how much income the Partnership raised for the year ending 31/03/05 and what proportion was paid to the treasury?

2. Can you provide your projected figures for income and Treasury contribution for this financial year?

A. 1:
The agreed Audit Certificate for the financial year 2004/05, can be found on our website. The certificate shows that the five partner organisations in Kent collectively incurred costs of £2,904,627 (line 21). These costs were reimbursed to us by the Department for Transport in full.

Line 3 of the certificate shows the total value of Fixed Penalty Notices, resulting from camera offences, which were passed to the Department for Constitutional Affairs. For the financial year 2004/05 this amounted to £3,657,540. This value was published in my annual report which can also be found on this Partnership’s website and was also included in a report to Kent County Council’s Highways Advisory Board, details of which may well appear on KCC’s own website as well, possibly, as some of our other partners.

It would appear from the above item that our fines collection exceeded our actual costs by £752,913 (Line 23 of the audit certificate) and this is what you refer to as ‘the proportion paid to the Treasury’. As you will see this is not calculated on a proportional basis but is simply the difference between income and total costs of running the cameras.

Some of these details contained are published, or will be published, on the Department for Transport’s website since they hold the copies of these audit certificates.

2:
Between 1 April 2025 and 30 November 2024 Kent Police have so far issued 50,563 Notices of Intended prosecution relating to offences detected by collectively by fixed and mobile safety cameras in the county (this therefore does not include any offences from hand-held devices or any other forms of enforcement outside of the ‘cost recovery’ programme). This is somewhat less than the number of penalty notices issued in the same period of last year (60,532).

The month-by-month totals of offences detected, Notices issued and Notices paid can be found on our website spanning the period July 2002 to October 2005 (November will be added very soon). Thus you may compare for yourself and make your own estimates as to how much less payments we will process this year compared with last year.

Our budget agreed with the Department for Transport for this current financial year is £2,834,789, which you will notice, is lower than the actual costs of running the cameras last year.

At present it is my expectation that this partnership will not spend its entire budget allowance (and the Treasury will of course retain the difference). Equally we are processing fewer offences and will thus pass fewer fine payments to the Treasury. It is certainly our intention that not only will our total costs and income both be lower but that the surplus received and retained by the Treasury will be much less than last year.