Dangerous Dogs (1343A/23)
Request
I am formally requesting data under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) concerning Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) and the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 within your jurisdiction for the past 24 months. Please provide:
I respectfully seek access to the following specific dataset:
1. The total number of dog-related incidents attended by law enforcement.
2. The precise count of documented cases involving human bites inflicted by dogs.
3. The number of tragic human fatalities resulting from dog-related incidents.
4. The count of canines lawfully discharged by officers during these incidents.
5. The precise tally of dog-on-dog incidents reported and meticulously addressed.
6. The number of dogs officially identified as “banned breed type” that have been involved in all dog-related incidents.
7. The comprehensive count of dogs seized under BSL, where no specific incident transpired.
8. The number of dogs that, following their lawful seizure, underwent euthanasia.
9. The current numerical representation of dogs currently housed within police-approved kennels.
10. The count of seized dogs that died while under the custodial care of law enforcement agencies, awaiting the commencement of legal proceedings.
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 questions 1, 8, 9 and 10). 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 respect of questions 2 – 7 we would need to manually review in excess of 2400 records for question 2 alone, which at 2 minutes per record would equate to 80 hours and 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.