This autumn, the Magistrates Association is set to issue voluntary guidelines which consider a company's turnover when setting a penalty and may encourage them to refer more cases to crown court where judges can impose larger fines.
"The West Midlands Police Twitter stunt highlights a serious issue - the concern that local newspapers aren't covering magistrates' courts as comprehensively as they once did, " he said.
However, the chairman of the Magistrates' Association, John Fassenfelt, said his group, which has about 28, 000 members and represents more than 80% of serving volunteer magistrates, had been appealing to the government for about four years to deal with the issue of cautions.