Registration numbers sold by IOM Government

Summary

The requester asked for statistics on car registration numbers sold by the Isle of Man Department of Infrastructure under variable rates, including pre-system data. The authority refused the request, stating that compiling the data would require substantial manual work and that information prior to October 2011 is not held in a retrievable format.

Key Facts

• The request was received on 16 July 2018 and responded to on 19 July 2018.
• The Department of Infrastructure is not required to create or derive information under the Freedom of Information Act 2015.
• The new variable rate registration system came into effect in 2010.
• The authority does not hold data on licence plates sold before the new system in a format that allows identification.
• Manual compilation of the requested data would involve analyzing over 370,000 transactions.

Data Disclosed

• 2018-07-16
• 2018-07-19
• 2010
• 11th October 2011
• 316,000
• 54,810
• £100
• £1,500
• £2,500

Exemptions Cited

• Requirement to create or derive information from existing data
• Undertaking substantial compilation or collation of information
• Information held prior to the 11th October 2011 deadline for the Act

Original Request

Could you please provide me with the number of car registration numbers sold by the DOI since the introduction of the variable rates split down by each band (eg; £100, £1,500, £2,500 etc) by year. Please can you also include the number of licence plates sold in the year preceding the introduction of this system for an understanding of how the system has performed when comparing to what was previously set in place. Many thanks

Data Tables (1)

Full Response Text

Department of Infrastructure Sea Terminal Building, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 2RF

Contact: FOI Co-ordinator Telephone: (01624) 686785 Email: foi.doi@gov.im

Our ref: 535534 19 July 2018

Dear ###

This request is being handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2015.

We write further to your request which was received on 16 July 2018 and which states:

"Could you please provide me with the number of car registration numbers sold by the DOI since the introduction of the variable rates split down by each band (eg; £100, £1,500, £2,500 etc) by year. Please can you also include the number of licence plates sold in the year preceding the introduction of this system for an understanding of how the system has performed when comparing to what was previously set in place. Many thanks"

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, complying with your request for information would require the Department of Infrastructure to: ‘Create or derive information from information that it holds and undertake substantial compilation or collation of information that it holds’ which the Department of Infrastructure is not required to do under the Act. The new registration system came into effect in 2010, prior to the 11th October 2011 deadline for Freedom of Information. Therefore under the Act we are not required to provide information prior to this date. That being said we do not hold the information on licence plates sold preceding the introduction of the new system in a format that would allow us to identify it. Registrations can be bought either through the Governments Online Service or through the IOM Post Office on our behalf. While both of these functions produce reports, they are not set up in a format that allows us to answer the questions that you have asked and would require a member of staff to manually identify each registration, and in a number of cases put costs against them before manually adding them up, which under the Act we are not required to do.

To give you an indication of the number of registration transactions that would be involved from the 11th October 2011 to date: IOM Post Office: there have been 316,000 transactions Government Online Services: there have been 54,810 transactions Please quote the reference number 535534 in any future communications.

Your right to request a review

If you are unhappy with this response to your freedom of information request, you may ask us to carry out an internal review of the response, by completing a complaint form and submitting it electronically or by delivery/post.

An electronic version of our complaint form can be found by going to our website at https://services.gov.im/freedom-of-information/Review . If you would like a paper version of our complaint form to be sent to you by post, please contact me and I will be happy to arrange for this. Your review request should explain why you are dissatisfied with this response, and should be made as soon as practicable. We will respond as soon as the review has been concluded.

If you are not satisfied with the result of the review, you then have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for a decision on; 1. Whether we have responded to your request for information in accordance with Part 2 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015; or 2. Whether we are justified in refusing to give you the information requested.
In response to an application for review, the Information Commissioner may, at any time, attempt to resolve a matter by negotiation, conciliation, mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution and will have regard to any outcome of this in making any subsequent decision. More detailed information on your right to a review can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.inforights.im. Should you have any queries concerning this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Further information about freedom of information requests can be found at www.gov.im/foi. I will now close your request as of this date.

Yours sincerely