E-Scooters 1082/23

FOI Reference: 1082/2023

Request:

1)Could you please tell me how many crimes your force recorded involving e-scooters (not e-bikes or any other form of electronic vehicle) in the following reporting periods?  

(NB if you do not record by quarter, please provide the total figure for each year instead). 

2) Could you please tell me how many times crimes involving e-scooters were put forward by your force to the CPS for prosecution during the following reporting periods?

(NB if you do not record by quarter, please provide the total figure for each year instead). 

Response:

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.

I can confirm that the cost of determining whether any information relative to this request is or isn’t held is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond therefore we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12 (2) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. The following exemption has been applied to the whole of the information you have requested:

Section 12(2) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The cost of determining what information is held, if any, relevant to your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum of 13,777 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244

The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to the whole request is not held in an easily retrievable format.

This is due to the fact that there is no crime category specifically for e-scooter offences and the system used is unable to carry out a keyword search, therefore all crimes recorded within the specified timeframe would require an individual interrogation in order to establish whether or not an E scooter was involved.

It has been established that there is a total of 165,326 records that would require interrogation and it has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 5 minutes to interrogate a single record, resulting in the following time estimate.

2019 to 2023 = 165,326 offences x5 minutes per record= 13,777 hours

(This equates to an average of 2,755.4 hours per year)

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact. You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.                                             

It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.

Furthermore, it should also be noted that Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 02.02.2024)