Vehicle Vandalism 755/23

FOI Reference: 755/2023

 

Request:

 

I would like to make the following request for information. For each of the past three years (1st August 2020 - 31st July 2021, 1st August 2021 - 31st July 2022 and 1st August 2022 - 31st July 2023):

 

Q1) How many reports did your force receive of vehicles being vandalised?

 

Q2) Which postal code areas had the most number of reports (please provide the top 5 if possible, including the number of reports you received for each postal code.).

 

Clarification:

 

Clarification was sought from the applicant and they confirmed that they were requesting information for both crimes and incidents.

 

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 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 the 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 508.17 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 have been advised that the information in respect of your request for incidents is not held in an easily retrievable format as there is no specific opening code/category to denote vandalism to vehicles. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to the request for incidents would require the individual interrogation of all incidents with the opening code/category of ‘C-damage’ over the time frame specified to identify if the incident in question related to a vehicle being vandalised. It has been established that for a 1 year period there are a total 3049 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 the request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.

 

01/08/20 – 31/07/21 = 3049 ‘C-damage’ incidents at 10 mins per incident = 508.17hours

 

Total of 508.17 hours to complete  and the whole of the request.

 

Please note: The above time estimate relates to a single year and it’s likely that similar time estimates in hours would be applicable for the remaining two years, however these time estimates have not been undertaken as the time estimate for a single year significantly exceeds the 18 hour time limit.

 

In addition to the above a response in relation to crimes can be provided within the 18 hour time limit. 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.

                                                                                                           

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 23/10/23)