The Department of Infrastructure says it is unable to determine how many MHKs have had Fixed Penalty Notices cancelled.
It says doing so would require significant manual work to extract the information.
A Freedom of Information request, submitted on February 20, asked two questions:
- how many MHKs had Fixed Penalty Notices cancelled; and
- how many parking bays are allocated for MHKs and what they pay for them.
The Department said answering the first question would require compiling a full list of current and former MHKs, manually checking all parking‑enforcement records for name matches, identifying which cases involved cancelled penalties, and determining whether the MHK was actually the driver, information the Department does not hold.
It said this level of collation and analysis would exceed the limits set out in Section 8(3) of the FOI Act, which states that public bodies are not required to undertake substantial research to create new information.
While declining to answer the first part of the request, the Department confirmed that 17 parking bays are allocated for MHKs, each charged at £95 per month.
