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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: FOI-260-2024
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 28th February 2024 as follows:
Can you please tell me, in the last three years, how many times has Warwickshire police been called to attend a local council meeting because of aggression/violence etc.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in providing the response to your request and for any inconvenience that this may have caused you. Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
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.
Warwickshire Police are unable to confirm whether or not any information is held in relation to your request.
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.”
There is no method by which we can easily retrieve information from our Command & Control system to answer this request. In the absence of any specific periods and locations, in order to determine if such information is or is not held and, if held, to ensure that all information is located, it would be necessary to conduct reviews of thousands of incident logs during the period.
Keyword searches are not carried out routinely as they are not reliable due to only returning records where the chosen keyword(s) is present within the free text of the log (therefore if there are relevant incidents but where the call handler has not stated a specific keyword within the text then this will not be returned). However, in order to show an example of the time required even if a keyword search was undertaken, the analyst conducted a search of the Command & Control System for all incidents, recorded during the stated period, with disposal code ‘VIOLENCE’ and keyword ‘COUNCIL’ being present within the incident log. This search alone produced 624 results and to determine whether any of those related to aggression/violence taking place at a local council meeting it would be necessary to read and review each one on an individual basis. An estimate of the cost involved for this alone is set out below:
624 x 3 minutes = 1872 minutes / 60 = 31 hours
However, because additional incidents, that may meet the terms of your request, but which may be recorded under ‘Violence’, or may not have a keyword present and/or be recorded under alternative incident disposal codes other than ‘Violence’, the only way to determine if information is held, and then to ensure all information is captured, is to individually read thousands of logs.
As you will appreciate, this would take an inordinate amount of time and, therefore, the cost of complying with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) would be above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with Section 12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please treat this letter as the Refusal Notice I am required to provide to you in respect of your 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 extent of the searches required, I am unable to suggest a way to revise these elements of your request into one which could be provided 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