Scrap ‘six-week weeding’ of stolen vehicle VRMs
Motor insurance loss adjuster Claims Management & Adjusting (CMA), part of the QuestGates Group, is calling on the police to abolish the stolen vehicle data handling process known as ‘six-week weeding’.
According to the latest data from the Office of National Statistics, as many as 350 vehicles are stolen each day in the UK. Any Lost or Stolen (LoS) marker placed against a Vehicle Registration Mark (VRM) must be manually confirmed by the constabulary within six weeks. If not, the listing will be automatically removed – weeded – with any check returning a ‘Not Stolen’ status.
But some stolen markers are falling off the system, their stolen status being removed, because constabulary staff are not updating the status, not ‘confirming the report of crime. Read More here.
More detail about the process can be found here.
Additional information from the NPCC:
When a force puts on a Lost or Stolen (LOS) report – unless there is a Crime or other Police Reference, this will be logged as ‘unconfirmed’ where the circumstances are not yet fully known.
With an ‘unconfirmed’ LOS report, these will as has been raised by the originator be weeded off automatically at
6 weeks. Prior to this, at the 4 week mark the force will be notified by way of a Daily Action File (DAF) which will highlight an unconfirmed LOS Marker. Should no action be made on that repot it will be weeded 2 weeks later when the report has reached 6 weeks as not confirmed crime has taken place.
Should the circumstances be known and the marker is shown as ‘confirmed’ the entry will remain on the
application for 6 years from the date of the original input. At each annual anniversary of the marker, the force
will be notified by way of DAF that there is a LOS confirmed marker for the force to confirm this is still correct.
This annual review was added at the last review of the process (which was undertaken more than 5 years ago),
prior to this, the DAF was sent on the 6 year mark advising weeding.
20/08/2024 – FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NUMBER: 254/2024
Note: 11/2024, Merseyside Police added:
- The PNC Manual provides that a LoS report should be confirmed within 48 hours of the time of the theft. An unconfirmed LoS report will be delated after 6 weeks if not confirmed. There is a process to ensure that an unconfirmed Los report is brought to the attention of the inputting Force.
