Dog Attacks (1054A/23)
Request
Subject: Research on the scale of dog attacks attributed to Bully XLs in the UK.
- The number of dog attacks that have been recorded by your force? Please have this broken down annually, by breed and by any categorisation you might give for those attacks over the past 5 years.
- The number of dogs seized by your force (dogs that are out of control, aggressive, have attacked someone/an animal or are considered dangerous) over the past 5 years? Broken down annually, by your categorisation and by breed.
- (If you would like to save time compiling the above, we would only like data from dogs which are related to the Bully XL: American Bully, Staffy Cross or any type of Bully cross)
- Has your force written to Central Government expressing concerns over the rise of attacks attributed to Bully XLs?
- Is there anything you’d like to add about the views of your force when it comes to the rise of Bully XL attacks?
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 within 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 1054A_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.
REASON FOR DECISION
Regarding breed and categorisation for questions 1 and 2, it is not possible to provide this information without a mass trawl of crime records and seizure information. However, this would require manually examining thousands of records and such a search would 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: