Fixed-penalty Notices

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:32 pm on 15 September 2021.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 1:32, 15 September 2021

Thank you for the question. The Member is absolutely right that there are some FPNs that don't have the requirement to reinvest the money in terms of the cost of the service. But traffic and parking offences sit outside that, of course, being exceptions to that rule.

We did issue guidance to environmental health officers on the use of FPNs in January 2020, and that does advise then that the FPNs are used as part of a wider approach, which should include prevention and collaboration and that authorities have to make their enforcement strategies publicly available. And they should include all of the offences in the scheme and how much the authority will fine people for each offence, details of any early payment discounts, how the FPNs are used, how the authority deals with juvenile offenders, what the authority will do if offenders don't pay and how to appeal if the option is available. But it also requires that it's publicly available in those documents how the money for the FPNs will be spent and how the records are kept. But I'll certainly have a discussion with the representatives in the WLGA to alert them to the concerns that you've raised this afternoon and explore if there's more that we can be doing in terms of the application of that guidance.