HCOS4250 - Post detection audit and assessment: obtaining the relevant records

Where possible, Special Investigations (SI) officers will collect the records you need for your assessment at the time of the detection or during a subsequent visit to the trader's business premises. If all the relevant records are not obtained then you should write to the trader requesting their production. You should specify the records you require. There is a standard letter at HCOS5250.

If the offender fails to produce the relevant records within a reasonable time you should issue a letter warning of the liability to a £250 civil penalty under section 9 of the Finance Act 1994 as a result of their failure to comply with Regulation 48 of Hydrocarbon Oil Regulations 1973 (HOR). There is a standard letter at HCOS5300.

A standard covering letter to the issue of an EX601 for a civil penalty is at HCOS5350.

(This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)

Please note: you must be able to show that you have exercised discretion prior to the issue of the penalty and taken into account any information supplied by the offender.

Receipts for traders' records should be issued using form C&E 980. If any records are needed by the trader for the business to run, they should be photocopied and the originals returned to the trader.

SI staff should have conducted an interview with the offender. The interview record will provide useful information that can be used in the calculation of your assessment, such as:

• details about the business, particularly concerning the number of vehicles operated
• what the miles per gallon figures are
• the number of drivers, customers, distances travelled - long haul or short haul
• how many days a week the vehicles operate
• level of misuse, and how long it has been going on.

Details of vehicles tested, including mileage should be recorded on the Vehicle Record Sheets.

In cases involving Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs), SI should have uplifted tachographs from the vehicles. (It is a Department of Transport legal requirement that the last 7 days' tachographs be kept in the vehicle.) Tachograph charts may also have been uplifted.

Checks should have been done to identify vehicles belonging to the business. Details should be recorded in the case folder along with the Vehicle Record Sheet for the vehicles tested, interview records and any other relevant information that may assist Local Compliance staff in making the assessment, eg Intelligence concerning the trader and comments on the estimated size of the case.