February 07, 2025 | Incident and Crime Statistics , Crime Statistics
Request: FOI/00013548
Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Area Crime Statistics
Subject: Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 - 1400532.1
Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) We can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) does hold the information you have requested however it is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and this will be further explained below. PSNI have followed the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance ‘Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit’ in relation to this request, which also provides further detail on the application of Section 12(1) of the FOIA. This guidance is available on the ICO website at the following link:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf
Request 1
This request concerns contraventions of the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 ("the 1985 Order"). For the period from 1 January 2016 to December 2024, in relation to Article 108(8) of the 1985 Order (statutory limit on the maximum prize for playing one game by means of a gaming machine installed in a licensed office, licensed premises or bingo club by means of a gaming machine to £25) please confirm:
a) Reports and Complaints:
I. How many reports, complaints, or allegations have the PSNI received regarding allegations of contraventions of Article 108(8)?
II. Of those complaints, how many investigations / files were opened by the PSNI?
b) Current Investigations:
How many investigations regarding alleged contraventions of Article 108(8) are currently open with the PSNI?
c) Files Submitted to PPS:
How many PSNI files have been submitted to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) recommending prosecutions in relation to contraventions of Article 108(8)? .
d) Prosecution Decisions:
How many of the files which were submitted to the PPS for a prosecutorial decision have resulted in a decision to prosecute by the PPS?
e) Outcomes:
What was the outcome for each file submitted to the PPS? Confirmation of numbers of prosecutions / decisions to take no further action will be sufficient.
f) Convictions:
How many convictions have there been in relation to contraventions of Article 108(8)?
g) Ongoing Prosecutions:
How many prosecutions of breaches of Article 108(8) are still ongoing?
Request 2
For the period from 1 January 2016 to December 2024, in relation to Article 108(6) (statutory limit on the maximum charge for playing a game once by means of a gaming machine to £0.30) of the 1985 Order please confirm:
a) Reports and Complaints:
I. How many reports, complaints, or allegations have the PSNI received regarding allegations of contraventions of Article 108(6)?
II. Of those complaints, how many investigations / files were opened by the PSNI?
b) Current Investigations:
How many investigations regarding alleged contraventions of Article 108(6) are currently open with the PSNI?
c) Files Submitted to PPS:
How many PSNI files have been submitted to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) recommending prosecutions in relation to contraventions of Article 108(6)?
d) Prosecution Decisions:
How many of the files which were submitted to the PPS for a prosecutorial decision have resulted in a decision to prosecute by the PPS?
e) Outcomes:
What was the outcome for each file submitted to the PPS? Confirmation of numbers of prosecutions / decisions to take no further action will be sufficient.
f) Convictions:
How many convictions have there been in relation to contraventions of Article 108(6)?
g) Ongoing Prosecutions:
How many prosecutions of breaches of Article 108(6) are still ongoing?
Request 3
For the period from 1 January 2016 to December 2024, in relation to Article 108(4a) of the 1985 Order (statutory limit on the number of gaming machines in a licensed premises), please confirm:
a) Reports and Complaints:
I. How many reports, complaints, or allegations have the PSNI received regarding allegations of contraventions of Article 108(4a)?
II. Of those complaints, how many investigations / files were opened by the PSNI?
b) Current Investigations:
How many investigations regarding alleged contraventions of Article 108(4a) are currently open with the PSNI?
c) Files Submitted to PPS:
How many PSNI files have been submitted to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) recommending prosecutions in relation to contraventions of Article 108(4a)? .
d) Prosecution Decisions:
How many of the files which were submitted to the PPS for a prosecutorial decision have resulted in a decision to prosecute by the PPS?
e) Outcomes:
What was the outcome for each file submitted to the PPS? Confirmation of numbers of prosecutions / decisions to take no further action will be sufficient.
f) Convictions:
How many convictions have there been in relation to contraventions of Article 108(4a)?
g) Ongoing Prosecutions:
How many prosecutions of breaches of Article 108(4a) are still ongoing?
Answer 1-3
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Police Service of Northern Ireland, when refusing to provide such information (because the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit) to provide you the applicant with a notice which states that fact.
It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 12 of FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. The estimate must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case. The ‘appropriate limit’ is currently £600 for central government and £450 for all other public authorities including PSNI. The relevant Regulations which define the appropriate limit for section 12 purposes are The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulation 2004 SI 2004 No 3244. These are known as the ‘Fees Regulations’ for brevity.
Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations states that a public authority can take into account the costs it reasonably expects to incur in carrying out the following permitted activities in complying with the request:
(i) determining whether the information is held;
(ii) locating the information, or a document containing it;
(iii) retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
(iv) extracting the information from a document containing it.
Under those regulations PSNI can calculate the time spent on each of these permitted activities at £25 per hour (thus if the activity(s) takes more than 18 hours PSNI will be in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’).
When a public authority is estimating whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if the conditions laid out in Regulation 5 of the Fees Regulations can be satisfied. Those conditions require the requests to be:
- made by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
- made for the same or similar information; and
- received by the public authority within any period of 60 consecutive working days.
Regulation 5(2) of the Fees Regulations requires that the requests which are to be aggregated relate “to any extent” to the same or similar information. This is quite a wide test but public authorities should still ensure that the requests meet this requirement.
Enquiries made in relation to your request numbers 1, 2 and 3 has identified that retrieval of the information to respond to your request (separately and in whole) would exceed the FOI legislative cost of 18 hours as set by the Secretary of State.
The information you seek access to, while held electronically by PSNI, is not held in a format that would allow its retrieval without manual intervention. Attempts to search our system for offences relating to the stipulated articles, revealed there were no corresponding ‘offence codes’ specific to the majority of the articles listed in the request. As advised previously, due to the lack of those specific closing codes in relation to gaming machines on our systems, retrieval of requested data would involve the manual review of every incident reported to the PSNI in the 9-year period.
This would require an inspection of hundreds of thousands of serials – hence putting this request over the 18-hour cost limit set out under FOIA. It was estimated by the relevant Record Owner within Service that it would take months to retrieve the information you seek.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter should be considered as a Refusal Notice, and the request has therefore been closed.
Advice and assistance
You may wish to submit a refined request in order that the cost of complying with your request may be facilitated within the ‘appropriate limit’. In compliance with Section 16 of the Act, we have considered how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit.
Unfortunately we are unable to provide refinement to bring any of the Requests listed above below the appropriate limit at present.
The Department of Justice or the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland, might hold some of the information you seek access to in their records. Please contact them directly.