Confirming & Weeding
A vehicle theft report to the police results in the Vehicle Registration Mark (VRM) being placed on the Police National Computer (PNC) Lost or Stolen (LoS) register.
Until the report is ‘confirmed’, the LoS status is not transferred to the DVLA.
- Within 48 hours, the report should be confirmed.
- At 2 weeks (14 days), if the report is still not confirmed, the constabulary is sent a ‘reminder’, an alert – a VE602 notification.
- At 6 weeks (42 days), if the report is still not confirmed, the constabulary receives a further VE602 notification, a warning: the LoS marker is about to be removed from the PNC.
At day 43, if the report is not confirmed not only will the DVLA (still) be unaware of the LoS status, the LoS marker will be removed from the PNC, it is ‘weeded‘.
At day 43, until confirmed (and the constabulary has already been alerted to this twice) an enquiry of the PNC and/or DVLA will not return the LoS status of the VRM.
- What is not understood about the problems this can give rise to?
- Why is this archaic process permitted to continue?
CEASE the process now!
Confirming & Weeding are unncessary
The Gwent police approach
11/2024, Gwent police put in place a ‘confirm at LoS notification’ process; staff were informed they should confirm reports when notified.
But this is a manual process; if you make something idiot proof (which this clearly was not) …
- A takeaway from the process is however important; if Gwent police could effectively negate the process by ‘confirming’ LoS reports immediately, clearly the process serves no purpose, is redundant, unnecessary.
There existed the opportunity to address this at source; do away with the process, prevent oversight, human error, remove an area of correspondence (reduce workload) and avoid complaints that are time-consuming to address and create a poor impression.
An opportunity squandered.
The Gwent police issue
Instead, Gwent’s procedure relied on police operators complying with the ‘immediate confirm’ instruction, requirement. Rather than remove a procedure, they created a further one to compliment the existing arrangement. Rather than dealing with the issue at source a ‘manual’ procedure was instigated that required human input which, can frequently see human-error creep in.
Unsurprisingly, the issue raised its head again (and again). Some 10 months later, when questioned about another suspected weeded matter the constabulary provided the continuity:
FCR – Force Control Room
- 17/09/25 07:36 Stolen vehicle reported to Police.
- 17/09/25 07:35 Stolen report (LOS) recorded on Niche.
- 17/09/25 07:43 PNC Vehicle Update (LOS report) created by FCR Operator.
- Given the timeframe between the PNC update on 17/09/25 to 04/09/25 (7 weeks), this would indicate that the report was Unconfirmed by the FCR Operator at the material time. Unconfirmed LOS reports are automatically weeded from PNC after 6 weeks. This cannot be verified as the FCR Operator has left the force.
- 04/11/25 Niche Log Entry records that owner had been informed by insurer* that vehicle had been located. Subsequent enquiries by OIC did not identify a corresponding STORM log. PNC checked (13:29) – marker no longer present. This resulted in PNC LOS report being reinstated.
- 04/11/25 13:36 PNC Vehicle Update (LOS report) created by FCR Operator (weed date 6 years indicating that the report has been Confirmed).
* in fact, loss adjusters had been monitoring the VRM and advised the victim/insured their VRM was no longer on the PNC LoS register.
Gwent police further explained:
- The FCR does not QA every LOS report due to risk management and capacity.
- Weekly briefings are issued to staff and FCR Briefing on 07/10/25 reinforced the need for all LOS reports to be confirmed at point of creation.
The concern, with regard to the above, is that Gwent police have identified a problem and put a fix (of sorts) in place. Yet it appears they have concerns about the approach as it was necessary to issue a reminder to staff. A short while later, further explanation was provided:
24/11/2025 from Gwent Police
Subject: Re: Public access to information – Request for Clarification – Handling of Communications and Data Protection Concerns
The PNCB have conducted a review of the Daily Activity Files (automatically generated by PNC) for Lost/Stolen reports. The DAF dated 6th October 2025 includes the VRM in question, with a weed date four weeks hence.
The PNC Bureau no longer routinely monitor the DAF for Unconfirmed Markers.
This process was removed on the basis that the FCR Operators adopted the new process whereby all LOST/STOLEN markers were Confirmed at creation. In the event that the PNCB receive a Niche Task from FCR Operators requesting a marker to be Confirmed, this is duly returned to the FCR Operators to address.
Head of Information Services
But, as evidenced by further weeding events, the ‘new process’ was not being adhered to.