Non-Crime Hate Incidents (1733A/21)
Request
(i) How many Non Crime Hate Incidents (NCHIs) were recorded in the years 2017-21 (a breakdown for each year would be helpful)
(ii) of these recorded NCHIs, how many required an officer to visit an alleged ‘perpetrator’ or ‘offender’. (again a breakdown for each year between 2017-2021 would be much appreciated.
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
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 for question 1). 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.
REASON FOR DECISION
Please note that researching each individual case would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12). In order to see how many related to a visit to the perpetrator or offender would require a manual search of all of the relevant logs which would exceed the FOI time limit.
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.