Fixed Penalty Notices and PNDs Explained: Not a Conviction, Not a Caution

Not every minor offence in England and Wales ends up in court. Police have several out-of-court routes for low-level conduct, and they work very differently from each other. This guide explains Penalty Notices for Disorder, how they differ from a caution, whether they show up on a background check, and how they compare to fixed penalty notices and community resolutions.

What a Penalty Notice for Disorder Actually Is

A Penalty Notice for Disorder, usually shortened to PND, is a fixed financial penalty a police officer can issue on the spot, or later at a police station, for a defined list of low-level offences. The power comes from Part 1 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, which describes a penalty notice as an offer to "discharge any liability to be convicted" of the offence, in exchange for paying the penalty within a set period.

Typical PND offences include being drunk and disorderly, minor criminal damage, low-value theft (commonly known as shoplifting when it involves a shop), possession of cannabis for personal use, and being drunk in a highway. The scheme exists to give police a quick, proportionate response to nuisance-level offending, freeing up court time and officer hours for more serious matters.

Why Paying a PND Is Not a Conviction Or a Caution

This is the part of the scheme people most often get wrong. Paying a PND does not create a criminal conviction. The 2001 Act frames the payment as discharging liability to be convicted, not as an admission that the offence happened, and it is not recorded as a conviction on a person's record in the way a court finding would be.

That also makes a PND legally distinct from a caution. A caution, whether simple or conditional, can only be given where the person makes a clear admission of the offence and gives informed consent to accept it instead of being prosecuted. A PND carries no such requirement. Someone can pay a PND simply to close the matter down, without that payment being treated in law as an acceptance of guilt.

Timeline: 21 Days to Pay or Ask for Court

Once a PND is issued, there is a suspended enforcement period, normally 21 days, during which no prosecution can be brought for that offence. Within that window, the recipient has two real choices: pay the penalty, which ends the matter, or ask for the case to be dealt with by a court instead, which effectively rejects the notice and puts the allegation back into the ordinary criminal justice process.

If the recipient does neither within the 21 days, the law allows a fine of one and a half times the original penalty amount to be registered against them without a further court hearing in the usual sense. That escalation is one reason not to simply ignore a PND on the assumption that nothing will happen.

Does a PND Show Up on a DBS Check?

A PND is recorded on the Police National Computer, primarily so police can identify repeat low-level offending and decide how to handle a later incident. That recording is an operational, intelligence purpose. It is not the same as a criminal record, and it does not appear on a Basic or Standard DBS certificate.

An Enhanced DBS check works differently, because it can include a section for "other relevant information" at the discretion of the chief officer of the relevant police force. Whether a PND ever surfaces there depends on the specific role being checked and whether the chief officer judges the underlying conduct genuinely relevant to that role's safeguarding or trust requirements. It is accurate to say a PND may, in narrow circumstances, be disclosed on an Enhanced check. It is not accurate to say it never can be, and it is equally wrong to describe it as something that will routinely show up on any check.

Fixed Penalty Notices for Motoring and Environmental Offences

Fixed Penalty Notices, often abbreviated the same way as FPNs, are a separate and older mechanism used mainly for motoring offences, such as speeding or using a hand-held phone while driving, and for environmental offences enforced by local councils, such as littering or fly-tipping. They are not the same scheme as a Penalty Notice for Disorder, even though the names are easily confused, and they operate under different legislation depending on the offence.

Motoring FPNs typically give a set number of days to pay the fixed penalty or, for endorsable offences, to accept penalty points on a driving licence, or to elect for the matter to be heard in court instead. Environmental FPNs are usually set locally by the enforcing council within limits set by central government guidance.

Community Resolutions: An Informal, Non-Statutory Route

A community resolution is a different kind of out-of-court outcome again. It is not created by an Act of Parliament, and there is no specific statutory citation for it. Instead, it is a non-statutory practice developed through College of Policing guidance, used for genuinely low-level offences such as minor criminal damage, low-value theft, or minor assaults without injury.

A community resolution generally depends on the offender accepting responsibility for what happened and, in most cases, the victim agreeing that no more formal action is needed. It might involve an apology, an agreement to make good any damage, or another informal outcome agreed between those involved. It is recorded locally by the police force for their own records, rather than centrally in the way a caution or a PND is.

A Reform That Has Not Happened Yet

Part 6 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 sets out a plan to replace the current simple and conditional caution system with two new disposals, a diversionary caution and a community caution, and to abolish Penalty Notices for Disorder as part of that overhaul. This is enacted law in the sense that it has received Royal Assent, but it has not been switched on.

As of writing, the relevant provisions in Part 6 have not been brought into force by commencement regulations, with the narrow exception of the power to issue a code of practice for the new cautions, which has commenced ahead of the substantive reform itself. Until the rest of Part 6 is commenced, the current framework, simple and conditional cautions, fixed penalty notices, PNDs, and community resolutions, remains the law that actually applies. Anyone reading about the new two-tier caution system should treat it as a future change, not the current position.

This guide explains the general framework for out-of-court disposals in England and Wales; it does not cover every offence or every local variation, and it is not a substitute for advice on a specific notice, which a solicitor or an organisation such as Citizens Advice can help with. For how a caution works and what it means for a DBS check, see police caution. For what happens if a case does go further, see being arrested. For the wider picture, see the UK Criminal Law hub.