Prosecution and legal services (PLS) is the Vehicle Inspectorate's own prosecution service that specifically deals with offences discovered by VI and relating in the main to HGV/PSV drivers and vehicles.

The main purpose of PLS is to successfully pursue action through the courts in England and Wales where it has been deemed to be in the public interest to do so. This is usually done through magistrates courts and usually in the jurisdiction of where the offence was found, but not always.

In Scotland VI still generates the offence related paperwork but the legal system is different . Please see separate read on Scotland. *

All offences generated by VI feed into the PLS offices. These are based in Cambridge, Bristol and Livingstone in Scotland. The PLS offices differ from the cps in that they do not make the decision to prosecute. The decision to prosecute is made by the senior traffic examiner and then passed to PLS to pursue. Please see separate read for PLS functions. * Most cases are taken to court by VI staff but in certain cases contracted solicitors specialising in this field of work are used. PLS currently uses a network of 26 contracted solicitors.

About 26 staff in PLS handle something in the region of 9,000 cases per year, and in England and Wales, account for around £700,000 in court costs, fines go to the treasury. The penalties for the type of cases prosecuted range from fines to imprisonment and endorsement of licences. Operator offences are reported to traffic commissioners at traffic area offices and this can lead to revocation of operator licences.

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PLS; Aim Statement

We will acheive:

High levels of quality in our work, service and in all of our dealings with our customers. We will be receptive to our customer's requirements and will find no level of defect acceptable. We will build upon our reputation for impartiality and will work with Enforcement to achieve its own aims.

We will do this by:

Operating a highly participative team environment which will:

continuously measure,assess, evaluatue and adjust the service;
encourage customer feedback; and,
continually strive for improvement

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PLS: Objectives

To provide a quality cost effective prosecution service to the Vehicle Inspectorate and customers based on the principles of good justice and subject to continuous improvement, in order to maintain road safety.
We are committed to the principles of innovation, cross agency working and will use all available information technology to pursue efficiency.
We are an Investors in People organisation and develop and empower our team to be able to give their very best to the work that they do.

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PLS: What we do

Quality assure case papers provided by Vehicle Inspectorate examiners
Log/Track cases
Produce Court papers in England and Wales
Arrange Court dates in England and Wales
Issue and serve summonses on defendants in England and Wales
Arrange Court representation in England and Wales
Care and control of case including any adjournments
Account for and bank Court costs (link to help/education cost application) in England
and Wales
Report statistics trends (Link to statistics)
Action appeals/statutory declarations (link to after hearing) (stat dec/appeals)