Energy supplier bailiff calls 982/2022
FOI Reference: 982/2022
Request:
1) Since 1 July 2021, up to the date of your response to this request, please state how many times police officers attended domestic properties in your force area where an energy supplier or their agent (debt collectors and such) was forcing entry. These are known to courts as utility warrants or warrants of entry, but may be known under a different name to police forces. I am not interested in warrants on behalf of water suppliers, only gas or electric.
2) Please state how many of these calls for attendance were made by the energy supplier or their agents.
3) How many of these calls were made by energy suppliers or their agents for attendance in advance of the warrant being used (ie for officers to arrive at the scene before the energy company or debt agent tried to force entry using the warrant), rather than in response to an ongoing public order incident at the property after they had tried to enter the property?
4) Please state if possible how many of these warrants were for the installation of a prepayment gas or electricity meter.
5) If possible, please provide a list of each attendance, with the date and the name of the energy company or debt agent that made the attendance request.
6) Please state whether these attendancies were counted as “special police services” and were provided for a charge, pursuant to the power in s.25(1) of the Police Act 1996.
7) If so, please state how much was paid to the force for attending these incidents during this period.
Response 1 – 7:
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 38,144.33 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043244.htm
The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format as there is no specific category that covers your request on the relevant systems utilised by Dyfed Powys police. In addition to this Dyfed Powys police is unable to conduct keyword searches due law enforcement issues. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to your request would require the individual interrogation of all incidents over the time frame specified to identify if the incident in question related to a utility warrant or warrant of entry. It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 01/01/21 – 16/12/22) there are a total 228,866 incidents that would require researching. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research a single incident for relevance to your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
01/01/21 – 16/12/22 = 228,866 incidents@ 10 minutes per incident = 38,144.33 hours
Total of 38,144.33 hours to complete task
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, however with due regard to the time estimate provided above it is unlikely that refining your request will fall under the 18 hours as the same method and format will have to be undertaken. 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 Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 17/01/23)