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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 395-2023
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 12th April 2023 as follows:
Q1. Please confirm the number of criminal reports your force has received of fraud (specific to online or telephone scams) for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Q2. Please confirm how many Police Officers are/previously have been assigned to manage criminal reports of fraud (specific to online or telephone scams) for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Q3. Please confirm the number of criminal convictions your force has achieved for fraud (specific to online or telephone scams) for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not held centrally and is not available in a readily retrievable format as fraud crimes are not sub-classified into categories which would enable extraction of the requested information. In order to determine whether reference is made to a crime being in relation to an online or telephone scam, it would be necessary to review each and every fraud crime/referral recorded during the stated period. This would take approximately 3-5 minutes per crime in order to determine whether they fit the categories described in the request. During the period 1st January 2020 to 31st December 2022, more than 1,800 relevant crimes/referrals were recorded, and, even taking the lower figure of 3 minutes to review each request, this equates to in excess of 90 hours of work. This would therefore be above the amount of work to which we are legally required to undertake, i.e., the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ (£450) as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request; however, due to the number of records involved, I am unable to suggest a way to revise your request into one which could be answered within the fees limit. I can however advise that the crime recording system does have an ‘online crime’ flag, which officers can apply when recording offences. It may therefore be possible to search for fraud crime/referrals recorded during the stated period, that have an ‘online crime’ marker. However, please note that this marker can be selected by officers to indicate an online connection but may not be selected in all cases of online fraud and may not indicate online fraud exclusively.
Furthermore, I can advise that conviction data falls within the remit of HM Courts & Tribunal Service (HMCTS), and therefore you may wish to contact them directly regarding Q3. I can also advise that Action Fraud is the UK’s national crime reporting centre for fraud and where all fraud should be reported. They provide a central point of contact for information about fraud. You may therefore wish to review their website which can be located using the below link:
As a gesture of goodwill, I have provided a response to Q2 below. Please note that this data was located before it was realised that not all of the information could be retrieved within the fees limit and should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests.
Q2 response: No officers are solely dedicated to investigating online or telephone related fraud scams. Fraud related reports could be investigated by a specialist fraud team, as well as officers within CID and patrol. Regarding the specialist fraud team capability, the officer numbers are set out below, however, please understand that fraud will also be investigated by other officers and staff within the force.
2020 – 3
2021 – 4
2022 – 3
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB