Poaching offences 908/2022
FOI Reference: 908/2022
Request:
Can you provide me with stats from each of the last five year on reports of poaching in your area? I am looking for crime reports with the word "poach", "poaching" or "poacher" and/or potential offences under section 30 of the Game Act 1831 or the Night Poaching Act 1828.
Clarification:
Clarification was sought from the applicant and information was requested for incidents and crimes. The time frame was specified as either calendar or financial years.
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 12,210.17 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 for reports made to the police by the public in respect of poaching as there is no specific category. In addition to this we are unable to conduct keyword searches on the relevant systems utilised due to law enforcement issues. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to your request would require the individual interrogation of all reports made/incidents recorded under the categories of C-Other, P-Suspicious and P-Animal over the time frame requested to identify if the report made/incident in question related to poaching and section 30 of the Game Act 1831 or the Night Poaching Act 1828. It has been established that for the period requested (i.e. 2018 – 2022) there are a total 73,261 records that would require researching. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research a single report made/incident for relevance to your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
|
2022 |
= |
12,012 |
records at 10 mins per record = |
2,002.00 |
|
2021 |
= |
14,998 |
records at 10 mins per record = |
2,499.67 |
|
2020 |
= |
15,149 |
records at 10 mins per record = |
2,524.83 |
|
2019 |
= |
14,989 |
records at 10 mins per record = |
2,498.17 |
|
2018 |
= |
16,113 |
records at 10 mins per record = |
2,685.50 |
Total of 12,210.17 hours to complete task
Please note: In addition to the above; and in relation to the crimes aspect of your request offences under section 30 of the Game Act 1831 or the Night Poaching Act 1828 are not notifiable so there is no information held/recorded on the crime systems. However, we were also informed that there was potential for this information to be recorded as a wildlife incident. We have searched the relevant system utilising the keywords outlined for the past 5 year period and there have been zero (0) wildlife incidents recorded that have been deemed relevant to your request.
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, however with due regard to the time estimate provided above it is unlikely that refining your request will fall under the 18 hours as the same method and format will have to be undertaken. 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 Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 19/12/22)