Licensing authorities would have received an email from DEFRA seeking information on new burden payments in respect of the requirement to upload data to DEFRA.

DEFRA have now provided further clarification on this payment:

Many thanks for those that responded to a previous email sent out on 12th December asking to confirm your payment details for the new burdens payment.
 
Apologies if there was any confusion caused in regards to this payment.
 
The purpose of the payment is to provide support to licensing authorities in England and Wales towards expenditure lawfully incurred or to be incurred by them as a result of implementation of the Air Quality (Taxi and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019.
 
The amount of this payment will be £597 for 19/20. Further payments will be subject to future Spending Review funding bids and/or be covered by the commercial arrangements for the running of the central charging system which is currently being developed.
 
Please see the links below for more information on this payment:

• Paragraph 38, page 9: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/778829/caz-taxi-consult-sum-resp-english.pdf
• Regulatory triage assessment: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2019/9780111177969/pdfs/ukdsiod_9780111177969_en.pdf