Complaints about DA investigations 176/2024
FOI Reference: 176/2024
Request:
Please provide the following information, from 2015 to the present day. Please provide monthly data on:
1) Number of complaints from domestic abuse victims regarding your force’s handling of their case. Please provide this as a raw number and percentage of cases.
2) The outcome of the above complaints. If this is categorised, please outline what these categories are and how many cases fell into each category.
3) Which category each complainant falls into under the IOPC’s guidance which lays out the three following categories:
a) claims to be the person in relation to whom the conduct took place.
b) claims to have been adversely affected by the conduct.
c) claims to have witnessed the conduct (is acting on behalf of someone who satisfies one of the above three criteria).
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 the questions posed in 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 these questions in 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 863 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. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to your questions would require the individual interrogation of all complaints using the category of ‘complaints regarding domestic incident handling’ or similar over the time frame specified to identify if the reports related to complaints regarding domestic abuse investigations.
It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 2015 – 2024) there are a total 5,183 domestic 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 questions as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
2015: 257 x 10 = 42.8 hours
2016: 267 x 10 = 44.5 hours
2017: 311 x 10 =51.8 hours
2018: 302 x 10 =50.3 hours
2019: 303 x 10 =50.5 hours
2020: 765 x 10 = 127.5 hours
2021: 820 x 10 =136.6 hours
2022: 1057 x 10 =176.6 hours
2023: 995 x 10 =165.8 hours
2024: 106 x 10 = 17.6 hours
Total of 863.3 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 27/02/24)