Sexual offences in schools 905/23
FOI Reference: 905/2023
Request:
How many reports of the crimes listed below have been recorded by your police force that have taken place at schools in your area in each calendar year since 2017 inclusive. For 2023, please provide totals up to today (25 September, 2023).
For the purposes of this request, please provided totals for the schools listed in the Wikipedia links in the body of this request.
For the purposes of the Act, please treat this as a separate request to the similar FOIA email I sent earlier this month. Please cancel that FOI Request.
Crimes:
- Sex - Assault a male 13 or over by penetration with part of body / a thing - SOA 2003
- Sex - Assault a boy under 13 by penetration with a part of your body / a thing - SOA 2003
- Sex - Sexual assault on a male - SOA 2003
- Sex - Assault a boy under 13 by touching - SOA 2003
- Sex - Rape a girl aged 13 / 14 / 15 - SOA 2003
- Multiple undefined offenders - Rape of a female aged under 16 - SOA 2003
- Sex - Rape a woman 16 years of age or over - SOA 2003
- Sex - Rape a male under 16
- Sex - Attempt to rape a woman 16 or over - SOA 2003
- Sex - Attempted rape of a male under 16 years of age
- Sex - Rape a girl under 13 - SOA 2003
- Sex - Rape of a boy under 13 - SOA 2003
- Sex - Assault a female 13 and over by penetration with part of body / a thing - SOA 2003
- Sex - Assault a girl under 13 by penetration with a part of your body / a thing - SOA 2003
- Sex - Sexual assault on a female - SOA 2003
- Sex - Assault a girl under 13 by touching - SOA 2003
Locations:
Carmarthenshire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_in_Carmarthenshire
Ceredigion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_in_Ceredigion
Pembrokeshire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_in_Pembrokeshire
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 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 30.4 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 some of the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. Due to a change in police recording systems the data recorded after May 12th 2023 is not easily retrievable at this time, until further data modelling can be completed. In light of this and in order to accurately obtain the information relative to your request for the time frame stipulated would involve Dyfed Powys Police accessing and reviewing all sexual offences in this time period to identify the location and whether it was in a school premises.
It has been established that there are a total of 365 sexual offence 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:
13/05/2023 – 25/09/2023= 365 records x 5minutes per record= 30.4 hours
Total time estimate to complete whole request = 30.4 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 note, Dyfed Powys Police does hold the data requested for before the computer system change, which would be retrievable within the 18hour limit, however, please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
Please also note, Dyfed Powys Police also covers the County area of Powys, which you have not requested information for, should you wish to request the information for this county also, please contact the FOI department, but it should be noted without refinement the request will only increase the time taken, which is already over the 18hours cost limit.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 26/02/2024)