Reports of shootings 854/2025

FOI Reference: 854/2025

Request:

1. Please provide data showing how many report of shootings your force has received between 2020-2025. Please break data down per year. For the year 2025, please provide data as close to the present date as possible.

Please search for the terms "gunshot", "gun shot", "shooting", "firearm", "bullet", "shot".

A shooting is defined as the act of discharging a firearm.

2. Please also provide data showing how many firearms you have recovered and confiscated between 2020-2025. Please break data down per year. For the year 2025, please provide data as close to the present date as possible.

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.

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.

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information you have requested. However, we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12(1) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Section 12 (1) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(1) states: “…Section 1 (1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The cost of providing you with the information requested in respect of 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 9818 hours) to comply with this part of 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 respect of Question 1 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. 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 reviewing all incidents categorised as either weapons or suspicious incidents, each record would have to be manually reviewed to ascertain if they referred to shootings (as the system does not allow for keyword searches).

It has been established that there are a total of 58926 incidents that cover the period of your request.  It has also been established that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to review and obtain the information for a record in respect of your request (as outlined above).  The process outlined results in the below time estimate.

2020: 11654 incidents x 10 minutes each = 1942 hours

2021: 11651 incidents x 10 minutes each = 1941 hours

2022: 9905 incidents x 10 minutes each = 1650 hours

2023: 10237 incidents x 10 minutes each = 1706 hours

2024: 9846 incidents x 10 minutes each = 1641 hours

2025 to end of June: 5633 incidents x 10 minutes each = 938 hours

Time estimate to complete task = 58926 incidents = 9818 hours

Please note that Question 2 would be a separate time estimate as each case would need to be assessed to see if a firearm was seized and if so how many.

2023: 572 cases x 5 minutes each = 47 hours

2024: 1403 cases x 5 minutes each = 116 hours

2025: 1306 cases to date x 5 minutes each = 108 hours

2023-2025: 3281 cases x 5 minutes each = minimum of 271 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.                                               

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 03/09/2025)