999 Call Response (1266A/22)
Request
Of 999 calls reporting domestic abuse:
1/ Please provide the median annual police response time (in seconds) to attend 999 calls reporting domestic abuse categorised as
(i) grade 1 emergency,
(ii) grade 2,
(iii) grade 3, and
(iv) all grades, for each financial year from 2017-18 up to and including the current financial year until 31 Aug 2022.
Please also provide the total annual number of calls, target response time, and number of emergency incidents responded to within target time for each part of the question (i.e., by urgency grade).
Grades 1 to 3 typically refer to an emergency response, a prompt response and a routine response.
Please provide a description of the different grades (including expected response times to attend) used by the force if these differ.
2/ Please provide the total number of occasions that police did not attend
- i) grade 1,
- ii) grade 2 or
iii) grade 3 emergencies for each financial year from 2017-18 up to and including the current financial year until 31 Aug 2022.
3/ Please provide the longest individual time taken to attend a grade 1 and 2 ‘priority’ emergency calls or equivalent for each financial year from 2017-18 up to and including the current financial year until 31 Aug 2022.
4/ If possible within the cost/time limits, I would also like to know: How many domestic abuse incidents were subsequently recorded as domestic abuse crimes? Please do not include this question in the request if you think it would hit the cost limits, or engage any other exemption.
Of 999 calls reporting domestic burglary, vehicle-related crime, theft from the person and robbery:
5/ Please group these crime types together and provide the same information requested in questions 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide all of this information within the appropriate (cost) limit of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
However, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see attached file 1266A_22_attachment.xlsx*). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of the request.
* Please note – with regard to the attached information, we only have data available from 03/03/2020 onwards, so can only provide results for the 2020-21, and 2021-22 full financial years and the 2022-23 financial year from March – August.
REASON FOR DECISION
With regard to the number of emergency incidents responded to within the target time. Although we have been able to provide this information up to response grade P3 (see attached), it is not possible to determine this information beyond grade P3, without undertaking a manual review of records. Such a search would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
Similarly, with regard to question 3 (longest time to attend P1 & P2 grades), a search of our system produced results that were all massively excessive (ranging from a week, to in excess of three weeks…). This clearly did seem correct and closer examination of the P1s for example, showed that all three incidents were initially graded much lower, and after several days, were upgraded to a P1. Therefore, in order to get accurate figures for the purpose of this request, we would need to manually work backwards through all of the incidents, until we get to those that aren’t affected by a later downgrade or other factor. This however would be a huge undertaking that would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that the cost of compliance with the whole of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12(1) of the FOI Act 2000. For West Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450, as prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.
Additionally, question 4 “How many domestic abuse incidents were subsequently recorded as domestic abuse crimes and domestic burglary etc…” would similarly require a manual examination of records that would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12) and therefore, as instructed, has been excluded.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here: