Ward officer abstractions 959/2022
FOI Reference: 959/2022
Request:
1) Please provide the Dedicated Ward Officer (or neighbourhood policing equivalent for your force) abstraction rate, as a yearly average percentage, for every year 2010-present.
2) What percentage of 999 calls to your Force are regarding a mental health-related incident? Please provide this data for every calendar year since 2010, up to and including the current year to date.
3) What percentage of police time from your force is spent dealing with mental health-related incidents? Please provide this data for every calendar year since 2010, up to and including the current year to date.
4) How many police constables employed by your force have been deployed in operational support roles in each year since 2019?
Clarification:
Clarification weas sought in relation to questions 1 and 4, the following response was received:
I'm interested in the amount of time that ward officers / dedicated neighbourhood police officers (these could be PCSOs) spend 'off-ward', or away from their designated neighbourhoods or areas. If your force has no neighbourhood policing equivalent, please make this clear in your response.
Abstraction rate can be defined as those instances where such an officer / PCSO is required to work somewhere other than the allocated ward for any part of the shift (not including overtime). It does not include either training or attending court, which are seen as integral parts of the DWO role, even though they may take place off ward.
In other words - how often does your constabulary draft a Neighbourhood Police Officer off of their usual neighbourhood in order to assist with other operations within the Constabulary jurisdiction.
On your second point, operational support may be termed 'business support' or 'back-office functions', and refer to HR, IT support, procurement, and suchlike.
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 question 2 of 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 question 2 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 96,473.83 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 question 2 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format, as there is no mental health opening category on a 999 call. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to question 2 of the request would require the individual interrogation of all 999 calls to identify if the call related to a mental health related incident.. It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 2010 – 2022) there are a total of 578,843 999 calls received. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research a single call/incident for relevance to question 2 of your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
2010 - 2022 = 999 calls at 10 minutes per call/incident = 96,473.83 hours
Total of 96,473.83 hours to complete task
Please note: In addition to the above an additional time estimate would be applicable to question 1 of the request as to answer this part of the request from 2019 – 2022 would also exceed the 18 hour time limit. Furthermore, please see the end of the document for a response to the remaining questions of your request which have been provided as a gesture of good will and outside of the FOI Act. Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
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.
Although excess cost removes the forces obligations under the Freedom of Information Act to provide any further information, as a gesture of goodwill, I have provided information, relative to questions 1 (in part) 3 and 4 of your request which has been easily retrievable and outlined below. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.
Question 1 – For the period covering 2010 – 2018 there is no information held/recorded by Dyfed Powys police
Question 3 – There is no information held/recorded by Dyfed Powys police
Question 4 – Zero (0) Police constables
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 13/11/23)