FOI release

Door supervisor prosecutions: additional request

Updated 3 October 2023

1. Request

1. The number of door supervisor licence holders who have been prosecuted by the SIA at magistrates’ courts for section 3 offences [engaging in licensable conduct without a licence] between 2015 and 2023.
2. The number of those individuals mentioned above who pleaded not guilty to the charges but were found guilty.
3. The number of individuals as above who had no applications in progress when charged.
4. The number of individuals as above with no previous licences recorded
5. The number of individuals as above who were found guilty and were sentenced, having a community order/probation order as their sentence or an aspect of their sentence.
6. The number of those convicted as above who were fined, without any combination of community order as part of the sentence.
7. The number of those convicted as above who were ordered to pay costs in excess of £2,000
8. How many convicted individuals as above were sentenced to imprisonment.
9. Please provide the number of individuals prosecuted by the SIA for section 3 offences [engaging in licensable conduct without a licence] whilst they had completed top-up training and their application was in progress with the SIA.

2. Response

I can confirm that the SIA does hold this information. A response to each question is provided below.

Please note that as per our response to your previous FOI request, in line with the SIA retention schedules information pertaining to prosecutions is held for a period of 7 years and therefore we can only provide information between 2016 and 2023.  We do not hold information pertaining to the year 2015 as this is outside of the retention time frame.

Please also be aware that these figures below do not provide an accurate picture of the number of section 3 PSIA 2001 prosecutions as other agencies are able to prosecute these offences, such as The Crown Prosecution Service, Procurator Fiscal and the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland.

2.1 Question 1

An individual who is in possession of a door supervisor licence would not be prosecuted for a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence because they hold a licence. A s.3 PSIA 2001 offence relates to individuals who are undertaking licensable conduct without the relevant licence. Section 3 PSIA 2001 is a summary only offence, a summary only offence can only be prosecuted in the magistrates’ court.

As such, the SIA has interpreted this question to mean “how many individuals have been prosecuted for a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence between 2016 and 2023?”  In respect of the information from 2016 to 2022, the SIA has already provided this information in response to your previous FOI request on 23 August 2023. The number of individuals who have been prosecuted for a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence in 2023, as of the date of this response, is 10.

2.2 Question 2

From 2016 to 2023 the number of individuals who plead not guilty to a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence are 7, and all 7 were found guilty after trial.

2.3 Question 3

For this question, while the SIA holds this information, it is not easily retrievable, and we would have to interrogate each prosecution file and licensing account to determine which individuals had no applications in progress when charged with a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence. 

I can confirm that this part of the email will constitute a refusal to deal with number 3 of your request for the reasons I will set out below.

Exceeding the Appropriate Cost Limit

Section 12(1) – (4) of the Freedom of Information Act allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to comply with the request in its entirety or to confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. In the case of a public authority such as the SIA, the appropriate cost limit is £450.

The ICO guidance The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 sets out how a public authority should estimate whether the work required to obtain information is reasonable and appropriate. In the case of requests that would require work on the part of public authority staff, this is estimated at a rate of £25 per person per hour. This means that 18 hours is considered the appropriate limit.

Reporting limitations within the databases where, licensing information and information on prosecutions against individuals who were unlicensed and had no applications in progress when charged with a s.3 PSIA offence, is held means that the statistics cannot instantly be isolated and retrieved. 

What information can we provide?

For each case relating to this specific search remit, each one would need to be manually interrogated to retrieve the information you have requested. We would also need to search a number of different locations within our two different systems to obtain this data, which significantly adds to the time and cost limit.  To consider each case over this 7 year period, would significantly exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours and appropriate cost limit of £450.

Next steps

In order to better facilitate your request, I suggest that you limit the scope of your request, so that we can manually search each case until the appropriate cost limit is reached.  Given that this will be a very time intensive exercise to manually look at each case and filter out those that match this niche criteria, I would ask that you limit your search to a particular month within the period that you are interested in. 

The SIA will search as many cases as possible up to the appropriate cost limit within this reduced timeframe.  If we are able to search the case well within the appropriate cost limit, we will get in touch and request that you provide us with details of a further month that you would like to be searched. 

I would be grateful if you could confirm your position in respect of this section of your FOI request and whether you would like assistance in trying to refine the scope of your request.

2.4 Question 4

This information was provided in our response to your previous FOI request, where you asked how many prosecutions were brought against individuals who have never previously been licensed. A response was provided covering 2016 to 2022. The answer for the year 2023 for individuals who were prosecuted with no previous licence history is 8.

2.5 Question 5

The number of individuals who received a community order after being found guilty of a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence from 2016 to 2023 is 15.

2.6 Question 6

The number of individuals who received a Fine after being found guilty of a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence from 2016 to 2023 is 60.

2.7 Question 7

The number of individuals who were ordered to pay costs in excess of £2,000 after being found guilty of a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence from 2016 to 2023 is 4.

2.8 Question 8

The number of individuals who were sentenced to a term of imprisonment after being found guilty of a s.3 PSIA 2001 offence from 2016 to 2023 is 3.

2.9 Question 9

This question constitutes a repeated request under section 14(2) Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 14(2) says that “where a public authority has complied with a request, it is not obliged to comply with a subsequently identical or substantially similar request from a person unless a reasonable interval has elapsed between compliance with the previous request and the making of the current request.”

We therefore ask that you please refer to the FOI response sent to you on 23 August 2023, particularly the refusal part of the email which sets out why we cannot comply with the original requests about top-up training, which in turn will explain why we cannot comply with this repeated request about top-up training.

[Reference: FOI 0445]