FOI 674-2023 / July 2023 / Dangerous dogs
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 674-2023
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 17th July 2023 as follows:
Q1. For the period from 1 July 2021 to 1 July 2022, how many reports were received of an owner or person in charge allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control in any place in England and Wales, injuring any person or assistance dog?
Q2. For the period from 1 July 2021 to 1 July 2022, how many of the above reports received were identified to be an American XL Bully?
Q3. For the period from 1 July 2021 to 1 July 2022, how many dogs have been detained under the Dangerous Dogs Act?
Q4. For the period from 1 July 2021 to 1 July 2022, how many dogs have been destroyed under the Dangerous Dogs Act?
Q5. For the period from 1 July 2022 to 1 July 2023, how many reports were received of an owner or person in charge allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control in any place in England and Wales, injuring any person or assistance dog?
Q6. For the period from 1 July 2022 to 1 July 2023, how many of the above reports received were identified to be an American XL Bully?
Q7. For the period from 1 July 2022 to 1 July 2023, how many dogs have been detained under the Dangerous Dogs Act?
Q8. For the period from 1 July 2022 to 1 July 2023, how many dogs have been destroyed under the Dangerous Dogs Act?
Response: Please be advised that some of the requested information is not centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. There is no field or marker within the crime recording system to easily identify the breed type of a dangerous dog, which has been out of control and caused injury, or whether it has been seized and/or destroyed. Between the years 2019 and 2022, the force utilised a bespoke system to record seizures, however, due to changes in 2022, this system, and the information recorded on it, is no longer accessible. Therefore, in order to provide a response to Q2, Q3, and Q4, as well as Q6, Q7 and Q8 in regard to breed type, seizures and destructions, it would be necessary to manually review each and every crime recorded under Home Office classification code 08/21 – Owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control injuring any person or assistance dog. The business area has carried out a search and has advised that there was a total of 500 such crimes recorded for the specified period. At a conservative estimate of 5 minutes per record to review, this would equate to in excess of 41 hours of work for this part of the request, and therefore the work involved in locating and retrieving the requested information exceeds the cost threshold of £450, which equates to 18 hours work at a standard rate of £25 per hour, 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 part of the request and, if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit, then section 12 applies to the whole request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to refining your request; however, due to the volume of records that would need to be manually reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way in which these elements of your request could be revised to allow the requested information to be retrieved within the fees limit.
As a gesture of goodwill, responses to Q1 and Q5 have been provided 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.
When considering the below information please be advised that searches were conducted for all offences classified under Home Office Code (HOCR) ‘8/21 - Owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control in any place in England or Wales (whether or not a public place) injuring any person or assistance dog’.
Q1 response: 239
Q5 response: 261
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