CCTV Cameras (783A/20)
Request
How many CCTV cameras are installed across the West Midlands Police Estate?
Does West Midlands Police have a maintenance contract for maintaining their CCTV Cameras and if so, what is the value of this contract?
How often are CCTV cameras on the West Midlands Police Estate checked to ensure they are working?
In each of the last three years (2018, 2019 and 2020 to date) how many cameras have been reported as broken or inoperative?
What was the longest period of time a CCTV camera was out of action from the initial report?
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). Information for questions 1, 3, 4 and 5 is not held centrally or in an electronically searchable format, some cameras are managed locally and some are managed centrally, therefore we would have to contact each and every site where CCTV may be installed to try and get information for questions 1, 3, 4 and 5 for those that are managed locally, this 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.