Modern Slavery (125A/23)
Request
Please would you send me for the each of the calendar years from 2019 to date:
The total number of offences recorded under the HO code 106 where the object was trafficking for sex.
Please segregate the data into two categories 18 and older and under 18
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 125A_23_attachment.pdf). 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.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.
In addition to the attached, West Midlands Police will 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 exemption:
Section 23(5) – Information supplied by, or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters.
Section 23 is an 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 supplied by, or concerning, certain security bodies.
Further information on Section 23 is available here.
REASON FOR DECISION
Home Office Offence Category 106 (Modern Slavery) refers to the following eight offences:
36/6 – Hold person in slavery or servitude
36/7 – Require person to perform forced or compulsory labour
36/8 – Arrange or facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation
36/10 – Commit offence other than kidnapping or false imprisonment with intention of arranging travel with view to exploitation
36/11 – Commit offence of kidnapping or false imprisonment with intention of arranging travel with view to exploitation
36/12 – Do act prohibited by slavery and trafficking risk or prevention order
36/13 – Fail to comply with requirement to surrender passport under Modern Slavery Act 2015
36/14 – Fail to comply with requirement to provide name and address under Modern Slavery Act 2015
Although we have been able to provide a total breakdown of these offences in the attached tables, it is not possible to provide separate figures that relate solely to offences containing an element of sex trafficking. This is because there are no specific offences in the group of offences above that relate only to sex trafficking and instead any of the offences could apply. Therefore, for us to determine ‘The total number of offences recorded under the HO code 106 where the object was trafficking for sex’, we would need to manually go into each case. This however would require an examination of approximately 3,500 records and even at the bare minimum of one minute per record, this would equate to nearly 60 hours of work and far 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.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here.