Brothel information 581/23
FOI Reference: 581/2023
Request:
1) The number of brothels known to your police force within the area that it operates. ('brothels' includes massage parlours and any other premises where it is known to police that sex work is undertaken)
2) the number of reports received by your police force that relate to brothels for each individual year between 2018 and 2023 (inclusive).
3) the number of arrests made in relation to brothels, sex work, and profiting from sex work for each individual year between 2018 and 2023 (inclusive).
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 question 2 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 question 2 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 58,785.41 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 question 2 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format as there is no specific tag/category to denote brothels on the system utilised by Dyed Powys police to log reports/incidents. In addition to this we are unable to complete keyword searches on this system for law enforcement reasons. In order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to question 2 of the request would require the individual interrogation of every report/incident over the time frame specified to identify if the report/incident in question related to a brothel. It has been established that for the period as specified within the request there are a total 705,425 reports/incidents that would require researching. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 5 minutes to research a single report/incident for relevance to question 2 of your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
2018 = 137,629 reports/incidents@ 5 minutes per report/incident = 11,469.08 hours
2019 = 131,127 reports/incidents@ 5 minutes per report/incident = 10,927.25 hours
2020 = 130,045 reports/incidents@ 5 minutes per report/incident = 10,837.08 hours
2021 = 136,327 reports/incidents@ 5 minutes per report/incident = 11,360.58 hours
2022 = 138,303 reports/incidents@ 5 minutes per report/incident = 11,525.25 hours
2023* = 31,994 reports/incidents@ 5 minutes per report/incident = 2,666.17 hours
(* To March 2003)
Total of 58,785.41 hours to complete task and the whole of the request.
Please note: A response to questions 3 of your request can be retrieved within the 18 hour time limit. Currently, we are unable to confirm if question 1 is retrievable under the 18 hour time limit as further work will be needed to confirm this. This request has already exceeded the 18 hour time limit, so the further work referred to above has not been undertaken. 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. 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 04/03/24)