FOI-1058-2025 / Oct 2025 / Crimes reported by charities and not-for-profit organisations
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 1058-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 28th February 2025 as follows:
- The number of crimes reported by charities and not-for-profit organisations, broken down by year, for the past five years (or the most recent available period).
- A breakdown of these crimes by type of offence (e.g., fraud, theft, arson etc.).
Response:
I apologise for the delay in responding to your request.
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 flag or marker to easily identify whether a crime was reported by a charity or not for profit organisation.
A search was conducted for investigations between 2020-2024 where any of the words/phrases ‘charity’, ‘charities’, ‘not for profit’ and ‘ not-for-profit’ are present in the incident summary/MO.
This has returned 274 investigations. To determine whether the crime was reported by such organisation it would be necessary to review each and every one on an individual basis, at an approximate 5 mins per investigation.
274 theft offences at x 5 minutes per record = 23 hours
Therefore, the work required 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.
In accordance with s12(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 number 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.
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 Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB