Domestic Abuse Victims 22/2022
FOI Reference: 22/2022
Request:
Can you please provide the details of the number of Domestic Abuse Victims reporting to your Police Authority broken down as follows:
For the period 1st January 2021 to 31st December 2021 inclusive by Age, Ethnic Origin and Gender.
For ease of reference, please incorporate a summary total by Age, Ethnic Origin and Gender both Force Wide and by Police Division.
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 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.
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 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 244.50 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 Unit has been advised that some of the information requested in relation to your request regarding victims of domestic is not held in an easily retrievable format and would exceed the appropriate time limit, i.e. 18 hours, to retrieve.
This is due to the fact that on some records, the age is recorded as 0 (zero) or missing, there are also unknown entries for ethnicity and / or sex. The information may be held within the crime record, however this would require a full manual review of each crime for the period 1st January 2021 to 31st December 2021 inclusive.
For the time period given, we have been advised by the relevant department that there are 597 relevant records that would require review, each taking approximately 10 minutes to review. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:
597 records x 10 minutes to review = 99.5 hours
Therefore, total time estimate to complete whole request = 99.5 hours
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.
Where this information has been recorded, this may be retrievable within the time period.
Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 25th January 2021.