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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: FOI-602-2024
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 27th June 2024 as follows:
Common Assault: 2022/23, 2023/24
Actual bodily Harm: 2022/23, 2023/24
Grievous bodily harm: 2022/23, 2023/24
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: Please be advised that not all of the requested information is centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format.
With regard to Q3 (and therefore Q4), in order to ascertain whether a member of staff had been physically assaulted it would be necessary to review multiple records on an individual basis. Searches were conducted for all offences falling under ‘Violence with Injury’ and ‘Violence without Injury’, recorded during the stated period, with location premise type ‘School’ (or location premise name is one of a local school), and where there is a suspect role recorded aged 16 or under. I can advise that this search produced 333 records and at an estimate of 4 minutes per records, searches would equate to in excess of 22 hours.
Further, with regard to Q5 (and therefore Q6), there is no marker or identifier within the crime recording system, nor the Command and Control System, to determine whether a school has reported enforcing a 'lockdown' measure due to threats towards staff and pupils. Keyword searches are not carried out routinely in relation to either system as they are not reliable, they will only bring back records where the chosen keyword(s) is present within the MO Description / Incident Summary within the crime recording system and within the free text of the log of an incident recorded on the Command & Control System. Therefore, in the event that the circumstances are relevant, but where the exact keyword has not been used to describe the situation, then these would not be picked up within a search. Therefore it would be necessary to review thousands of crime investigations and incident logs on an individual basis to determine an accurate response to the these elements of your request.
Therefore, for the reasons set out above, the work involved in providing a response you your request would be above the amount to which we are legally required to respond ie, the work involved in locating, retrieving and recording the information requested for exceeds the cost threshold (£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 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 S12 of the Act applies to the whole request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in suggesting ways to revise your request where possible. I can advise that were you to remove Q3 (and therefore Q4) it may be possible to retrieve information for Q1 and Q2 within the fees limit.
Further, although the limitations of a keyword search have been set out above, should you wish to resubmit a request for Q5 and Q6 asking for the specific term ‘lockdown’ to be searched within the MO Description / Incident Summary fields of crimes, and within the free text log of incidents, during the stated period, then this could be undertaken; however, it must be understood that this would not necessarily provide an accurate response for the reasons already stated and any information retrieved would be subject to the usual disclosure consdierations.
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