Financial investigation intel logs 122/24

FOI Reference: 122/2024

Request:

1) How many intelligence logs in total were created in 2023 by Dyfed-Powys Police?

2) Of these logs, how many are linked to financial investigation or POCA enquiries in 2023 by Dyfed-Powys Police?

3) How many intelligence logs were submitted by the Dedicated Source Handling Team (DSHU/CHIS tactic) in 2023 by Dyfed-Powys Police?

4) Of the logs submitted by the DSHU, how many relate to financial investigation or POCA enquiries in 2023 by Dyfed-Powys Police?

Response:

Question 1

I can confirm that there is information held as identified within the below response.

Question 2-4

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 questions 2 to 4 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 questions 2 to 4 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 818 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 questions 3 to 4 of the request would require the individual interrogation of all incidents under the category of ‘financial invesigations’ or ‘Dedicated Source Handling Team’ over the time frame specified to identify if the incident in question related to those elements.

It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 2023) there are a total 24,557 intelligence logs that would require researching. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 2 minutes to research a single log for relevance to questions 2 to 4 of your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.

2023 = 24,557 intelligence logs @ 2 minutes per incident = 818.6 hours

Total of 818.6 hours to complete task.

                                                                                                           

It should be noted that owing to the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such matters the information provided may or may not be accurate.

Police Forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recoding criteria is set nationally.  However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the 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 27/02/24)