FOI 588-2024 / June 2024 / Guide dogs
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: FOI-588-2024
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 20th June 2024 as follows:
The number of illegal guide dog access refusals (i.e. incidents breaching the Equality Act 2020 whereby a business or service provider refuses access to a person on the basis that they are with a guide dog) reported to Warwickshire Police in the following calendar years:
2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
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: Searches were conducted for the following offences as either a primary or included classification:
- Home Office Code 099/37 ‘Offences relating to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and regulations made under it’.
- 111/24 Conveyance of Guide Dog etc (Non-notifiable)
I can advise that the above searches did not return any results.
There may be a possibility that relevant information may be held which has not been recorded under the above offences. However, in order to ensure that all relevant information had been captured, it would be necessary to review each and every offence, recorded during the stated period, on an individual basis. This would take an inordinate amount of time 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.
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. However, although the limitations of a keyword search have been set out, should you wish to resubmit a request asking for specific terms to be searched within the MO Description / Incident Summary fields, for example ‘guide dog’ and ‘assistance dog’, then this could be undertaken and, depending on the number returned, it may then be possible to check each one for relevance. However, it must be understood that this would not necessarily provide an accurate response in relation to this request for the reasons already stated.
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