Disability Related Hate Crime (836A/23)
Request
Please could you provide me with the number of disability-related hate crimes for the period 2013-2018, broken down by the day they were reported.
To be clear, I would like the total number for each day separately, so a sample dataset could have every date in the years 2013 – 2018 in the first column and the number of reports made in the second column.
Additionally, if possible, could you further break down these numbers into offence type (public order, violence against the person with injury, violence against the person without injury, stalking, harassment, criminal damage, arson, other etc.). I would also like this data at a daily level. However, if that is not possible, then I would still like the first half of the request.
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). 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). Hate strands only started to be recorded accurately from 01/04/2014, before then there wasn’t a hate strand attached so it would be difficult to determine the disability hate crimes recorded in 2013 without manually reviewing all relevant records, this search 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.