FOI 954-2024 / Oct 2024 / Burglaries

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 954-2024

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 30^th October 2024 as follows:

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please could I be provided with the following information for the Christmas/New year period (December and January) in your local policing area in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023:

1. The total number of burglary cases reported to your force, broken down by Local Policing Area.

2. The number of burglary cases where something was stolen and there’s clear evidence entry was forced, broken down by Local Policing Area.

3. The number of burglary cases where the something was stolen but entry was not forced/violent and therefore the case was dropped, broken down by Local Policing Area.

Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.

Response: Please be advised that not all of the requested information is available in a readily retrievable format.  There is no way of readily identifying from the Crime Recording System where an offence of burglary involved forced entry or none forced entry.  In order to determine such information it would be necessary to manually review the wider investigation papers in relation to each and every burglary offence recorded during the requested period.  I can advise that we have recently received a Freedom of Information request asking for the number of burglaries in the month of December from 2019 to 2022 and, from searches undertaken, I can advise that just for the period December 2020, 2021 and 2022, this equated to 539 offences.  This was broken down as follows:

Even at a conservative estimate of 3 minutes per offence to just review those offences would take approximately 27 hours; however, this does not cover the entire period of your request and we would also need to factor in records recorded in December 2023 and January of 2020 to 2023.  Clearly this would greatly add to the time and, for these factors, the work involved in locating and retrieving the requested information would exceed the cost threshold of £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 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 in relation to refining your request; however, due to the volume of records that would need to be manually reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to do this within the fees limit.  However, we would be able to provide a breakdown for Q1 within period should you wish to withdraw Q2 and Q3.

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

[email protected]