Deaths by housing situation 13/2024

FOI Reference: 13/2024

Request:

Please can I request the number of deaths from 1st January 2023 – 31st December 2023 (inclusive) in each of the following housing situations in your local authority area:

• Accommodation for homeless people commissioned by your council, including hostels and supported accommodation for people identified as rough sleeping or with a history of rough sleeping
• Exempt accommodation
• Temporary accommodation commissioned by your local authority
• Supported accommodation for homeless young people commissioned by your council
• Rough sleeping or with no fixed abode

Where you have access to any of the following information, please include the cause of death or suspected cause of death, date of death, the person’s gender, the person’s age when they died, their ethnicity, and their immigration status.  If you cannot provide any of this additional information, then please just provide the number of deaths.

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 Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information you have requested. However, we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12(1) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Section 12 (1) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(1) states: “…Section 1 (1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request 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 94 hours) to comply with this part of 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 relation to your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that the location or housing type is not a searchable category or filter type, so each sudden death record would require individual interrogation in order to establish the requested information.

It has been established that there are a total of 1125 sudden death records that would require individual interrogation and it has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 5 minutes to research each individual record. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

2023 Sudden Death records= 1125 x 5 minutes per record= 94 hours

Total time estimate to complete whole request = 94 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.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.

                                                                                                           

It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.

Furthermore, it should also be noted that Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 08/02/2024)