Missing persons 1257/2025
FOI Reference:1257/2025
Request
I would be grateful if you could provide the following information relating to missing person reports recorded by your force over the last five complete calendar years (or financial years, if this is how the data is held):
1. The total number of individuals reported missing in each year.
2. Of those reported missing, how many individuals were:
a) Located or traced within 24 hours of being reported missing
3. The number of reported missing persons who were recorded as having:
a) Dementia
b) Alzheimer’s disease
(or other recorded cognitive impairments, if grouped together).
4. Any recorded data or estimates held by your force regarding:
a) The average number of officer and/or staff hours spent per missing person investigation,
b) Or, if individual averages are not recorded, the total officer/staff hours attributed to missing person investigations per year.
If available, I would appreciate the data being broken down by year. If the information is not held in the exact format requested, I would be grateful if it could be provided in the format in which it is already recorded.
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 of 2,025 hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located @ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information department has been advised that the information in respect of Questions 2 & 4 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. 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 manually reviewing 24,305 records, due to the fact that in relation to Q2, we are unable to provide the information in relation to how many of the missing episodes were missing for over 24 hours, as we do not collate that data. We would have to open each individual missing episode and identify the total missing time. This would take approx. 5 minutes per missing episode record, for a total of 11,301 missing episodes. In relation to Q4, we are unable to provide the information in relating to average number of officer and/or staff hours spent per missing person investigation, as we do not collate that data. We would have to open each individual missing episode and identify the total missing time. This would take approx. 5 minutes per missing episode record, for a total of 13,004 missing episodes.
The process outlined results in the below time estimate:-
Q2 - 11,301 records
Q4 - 13,004 records
Total records = 24,305
24,305 records x 5 minutes = 2,025 hours
Time estimate to complete task = 2,025 hours
In accordance therefore 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. Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the public authorities right to cite exemptions if relevant.
Although excess cost removes the forces obligations under the Freedom of Information Act to provide any further information, as a gesture of goodwill, I have provided information, relative to Question 1 and part of Q3 of your request, which has been easily retrievable and outlined below. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.
Response Q1
Jan 2025–25 Dec 2025 – 2020
2024 – 2335
2023 – 2468
2022 – 2317
2021 – 2161
Response Q3
January 2025–24 Dec 2025 – 42
Please note:
The only information available above, is Dementia & Alzheimer’s combined. Also, this can only be retrieved from January 2025- December 2025, as prior to that we were not collating the information. It would exceed 18hrs to go through each missing episode to try and obtain the information. This would involve going into each individual adult missing record and reading the incident message to identify if the missing person had dementia or Alzeimer’s .
This data does not include persons with mental ill health.
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.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 13/01/2026)
|
Os oes angen y wybodaeth yma arnoch yn Gymraeg, cysylltwch â: If you require this information in Welsh, please contact: |