UK Offence Report

1 A person who fails to comply with any of the provisions specified in paragraph (2) commits an offence.

regulation 15(1) of The Digital Waste Tracking (Scotland) Regulations 2026

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

1 A person who fails to comply with any of the provisions specified in paragraph (2) commits an offence.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
failing to do something the instrument requires
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 15(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. On these words an offence is committed where a person fails to comply with any of the provisions specified in paragraph (2).
  2. Not doing what the provision requires under the Digital Waste Tracking (Scotland) Regulations 2026, by the time it requires it to be done.
  3. Doing it, but not in the manner or to the standard the instrument specifies.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
11 March 2026
In force from
1 January 2027
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations are the first to be made under powers in section 34CA and 34CB of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (“the 1990 Act”). They establish in Scotland a digital waste tracking system, the purpose of which is to track controlled waste. The Regulations come into force on 1 January 2027. Controlled waste is household, industrial or commercial waste (see section 75(4) to (8) of the 1990 Act). Part 2 (regulations 3 to 7) and schedule 1 contain provisions relating to the establishment of the digital waste tracking system and default requirements for operators of a permitted facility to ensure the entry of information regarding controlled waste into the digital waste tracking system and to pay an annual fee. This Part also makes provision for outages (when information cannot be entered into the digital waste tracking system) and the correction of errors in the digital waste tracking system. Part 3 (regulations 8 to 12) contains provisions relating to digitally excluded persons, including alternative requirements for recording information that would otherwise be required to be entered into the digital waste tracking system under Part 2. Part 4 (regulations 13 and 14) contains provisions about functions of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (“SEPA”). Part 5 (regulations 15 to 20) contains provisions relating to offences, compliance notices and enforcement cost recovery notices. Part 6 (regulation 21) and schedule 2 contain provisions about appeals. Part 7 (regulations 22 to 23) contains supplementary provisions including those governing SEPA access to the digital waste tracking system and persons with whom information held under these Regulations can be shared.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person “commits an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source