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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 97-2024
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 22nd January 2024 as follows:
I am writing to request the following data for the last three calendar years (2020-2023).
- The total number of vehicle accidents/ intentional damages to vehicles reported in your local car parks over the past three years.
- The total number of thefts from vehicles reported in your local car parks over the past three years.
- The total number of assaults reported in your local car parks over the past three years.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. There is no specific identifier for ‘carparks’, and no flag or marker to easily identify where this is the location of an offence. Although it is possible that some locations may be listed as a carpark, due to the wide ranging possibilities that fall within this term from multistorey and public paying carparks to small carparks outside shops/ venues etc for customer parking, many will not have a location of their own and would be recorded as, for example, theft where the location is a shop but, with further examination, it is discovered that the incident actually occurred in the carpark outside the shop. Keyword searches are not carried out routinely as they are not reliable, they will only bring back records where the chosen keyword(s) is present within the MO Description / Incident Summary of an investigation, these are limited free text fields and do not contain all information in relation to an investigation. In order to provide an accurate response to your request it would be necessary to review thousands of incident logs to determine whether any accidents were reported in carparks and the wider investigation papers in relation to each and every crime of criminal damage, theft from vehicle and assault recorded in the last 3 years. Given the number of such incidents/offences recorded annually by the force, such searches would take an inordinate amount of time and would undoubtedly 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 records which would need to be individually reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to reduce your request into one which could be managed within the fees limit. However, although the limitations of a keyword search have been set out above, should you wish to resubmit a request specifically asking for a keyword search for ‘carpark’ within the free text and location fields of Incident logs for reports of accidents, and within the MO Description / Incident Summary fields and location fields of the relevant crime types in relation to the rest of the elements of your request then this could be undertaken; however it must be understood that this would not necessarily provide an accurate response. Further, such a request may still exceed the fees limit depending on the number of records which were returned, as in order to determine if the incident actually occurred within a carpark, rather than just mention of the word for an unassociated reason, it would still be necessary to review each on an individual basis.
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