Residential burglaries & thefts 214/2022

FOI Reference: 214/2022

Request:

The information we require is between the months of January – December 2021 and we’d like to know the number of residential burglaries/thefts as well as the number of thefts that occurred in a shed or outbuilding of a residential property (if it’s not possible/too much time to distinguish, just a general figure will suffice). There can be crossover here, so it’s fine if a theft involved both the house and shed, we’d just like the total number for each.

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 your 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 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 45.67 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 as not all crimes under the categories of residential burglaries and theft in a dwelling have the location tab populated and are therefore blank. Consequently, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to your request would require the individual interrogation of all crimes over the time frame stipulated in which the location tab is blank to ascertain if the crime in question related to a shed/outbuilding. It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 01/01/21 – 31/12/21) there are a total 274 crimes that would require reviewing. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research/review a single crime for relevance to your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.

2021 = 274 crimes @ 10 minutes per crime = 45.67 hours

Total of 45.67 hours to complete task

Please note: As a gesture of goodwill and outside of the FOI act the total number of thefts in a dwelling and residential burglaries for the period covering 2021 has been outlined.

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.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s 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 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.

Year	Total no. of residential burglaries and thefts from a dwelling crimes
2021	1,246

                                                                                                            

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 29/03/22)