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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 1104-2024
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 18th December 2024 as follows:
Under FOIA, please can you provide me with the following information for the entirety of the 2024 calendar year?
1/ The total number of Freedom of Information requests responded to by the force for this calendar year (2024). This is not the total number of FOI requests received but rather the total number of decisions sent to respondents by the force. Please do not include responses to internal reviews for all parts of this request, only responses to original requests.
2/ The total number of these decisions (the figure provided for part 1) which included a public interest test.
3/ A breakdown of the total number of public interest tests provided in the response to part 2 which concluded that information should be released (i.e. the conclusion of the test favoured disclosure).
4/ A breakdown of the total number of public interest tests provided in the response to part 2 which concluded information should not be released (i.e. the conclusion of the test favoured non-disclosure).
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Warwickshire police do not use a bespoke system to record details relating to FOI requests; instead, a spreadsheet is used to record basic details for each; however, this does not capture all information relating to specific exemptions applied etc. I can advise that a generic result record is made on the spreadsheet, under the heading ‘Response Result’, and types ‘Disclosed’, ‘Exempt’ and ‘Part Exempt’ indicate that a decision has been sent to the applicant. Searches were therefore conducted for all records, closed between 1st January 2024 and 18th December 2024 (the date of the request), where the ‘Response Result’ was either 'Disclosed', 'Exempt' or 'Part Exempt'. I can advise that this returned a total of 842 records.
However, with regard to providing a response to Q2, it would be necessary to review each and every one of those 842 cases on an individual basis to ascertain whether a public interest test was carried out. Even at a conservative estimate of 2 minutes per case to locate, retrieve and collate the information, this would equate to in excess of 28 hours and would exceed 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. For Police forces in the UK, the "appropriate limit" is up to 18 hours of work on one request.
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; however, due to the volume of requests which would need to be reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to revise your request into one which could be dealt with within the fees limit.
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