Drone Contracts (1649A/21)
Request
Please provide a list of contracts that have been awarded by West Midlands Police to manufacturers and/or suppliers for the provision of drone technology within the last five financial years, to include the following information:
- The name of the manufacturer and/or supplier in each contract.
- A description of each contract.
- The value of each contract.
- The duration of each contract, including any available extensions.
- The award date of each contract.
- The expiry date.
Response
Under section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information you requested is available on the following website:
https://www.blpd.gov.uk/foi/foicontractview.aspx?contractid=44944
In addition to the attached response West Midlands Police can neither confirm nor deny that it holds any other information relevant to this request as the duty in Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply by virtue of the following exemptions:
Section 23(5) Information relating to the Security bodies;
Section 24(2) National Security;
Section 31(3) Law enforcement;
Section 23 is a class based absolute exemption and there is no requirement to consider the public interest in this case.
Confirming or denying the existence of whether any other information is held would contravene the constrictions laid out within Section 23 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in that this stipulates a generic bar on disclosure of any information applied by, or concerning, certain Security Bodies.
Sections 24 and 31 are prejudice based qualified exemptions and there is a requirement to articulate the harm that would be caused in confirming or denying that any other information is held as well as carrying out a public interest test, please see attached.
These exemptions and explanatory notes are shown here:
No inference can be taken from this refusal that any further information relevant to your request does or does not exist.