Right to Know & Right to Ask applications 1101/2023

FOI Reference: 1101/2023

Request:

As a freedom of information request, please provide the data regarding the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (also known as Clare’s Law). For this request, please provide the following data from 2014 up until the most current date available at the point of production. If data as early as 2014 is not available, please provide it from the first available date onwards.

Please provide annual totals of:

- The number of ‘right to know’ applications

- The number of ‘right to ask’ applications

If available, please also provide annual totals of:

- The number of ‘right to know’ applications which resulted in disclosure after 28 days, and the number which resulted in disclosure after 35 days.

- The number of ‘right to ask’ applications which resulted in disclosure after 28 days, and the number which resulted in disclosure after 35 days.

Additionally, if available, please also provide:

- For each year, the longest time it took for a ;right to ask' disclosure to be provided

- For each year, the longest time it took for a 'right to know' disclosure to be provided

Response:

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 20.65 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244

The Freedom of Information department has been advised that the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format, due to a change in police recording systems there has not been a consistent data capture. In light of this and in order to accurately obtain the information relative to your request for the time frame stipulated would involve Dyfed Powys Police accessing and manually reviewing records. It has been established that there are a total of 177 records that form part of your request that would need to be manually reviewed.  It has also been established that it would take a minimum of 7 minutes to review and obtain the information for a single record in respect of your request (as outlined above).  The process outlined results in the below time estimate.

177 records x 7 minutes per record = 20.65 hours

Time estimate to complete task = 20.65 hours

In accordance therefore 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 the Freedom of Information Unit. Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the public authorities 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 01/07/2024)