Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many of each category of fixed penalty notices were (a) issued and (b) paid in each month since their introduction in (i) Bury St Edmunds, (ii) Suffolk, (iii) the East of England and (iv) England and Wales.

The Government has recently unveiled plans that would see an end to Penalty Notices for Disorder and a range of other Out of Court Disposals, including cautions. The aim is to ensure that there are more direct consequences in future for committing even minor crimes. The new approach will be trialled in three police force areas over the next 12 months.

This Government takes recovery and enforcement of financial impositions very seriously and remains committed to finding new ways to ensure impositions are paid and to trace those who do not pay. This is why there has been a year on year increase in the amount of financial penalties collected over the last three years.

HM Courts & Tribunals Service is actively seeking an external provider for the future delivery of compliance and enforcement services. This will bring the necessary investment and innovation to significantly improve the collection of criminal financial penalties and reduce the cost of the service to the taxpayer.

The number of Penalty Notices for Disorder issued to all persons aged 16 and over from 2005 to 2013 with outcomes can be viewed as follows:-

Data for the Suffolk Police Force Area can be viewed in Table 1

Data for the East of England can be viewed in Table 2

Data for England and Wales as a whole can be viewed in Table 3

Data on fixed penalty notices for motoring offences broken down by month are not collected centrally by the Home Office.

When PNDs and FPNs are not paid within the prescribed time limits they are registered as fines for enforcement by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). Once PNDs and FPNs are registered as fines it is not possible to identify these separately from other court imposed fines so it is not known how many have been paid. Fine registered PNDs and FPNs are enforced in the same way as all other court imposed financial impositions.