Dangerous Dogs / Dog Sales (224A/21)
Request
1) The number of cases reported and referred to the dangerous dog unit for the past 6 years. Along with this years current tally.
2) The number of dog sales, made by your dog unit over the past 6 years. Along with this years tally broken-down by:
a) Sales to other government agencies.
b) Sales to private businesses.
c) Sales to private households.
3) The typical private business customer profile and/or their information including any information about sales that I can request under an FOI.
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 224A_21_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.
REASON FOR DECISION
With regard to question 1 (The number of cases reported and referred to the dangerous dog unit), although we have been able to locate and retrieve data in relation to aggravated offences (see attached), information for non-aggravated offences, any referrals from the RSPCA, Dog Wardens, Dog Homes or the Neighbourhood Teams is not centrally collated. Therefore in order to determine this information, we would need to conduct a manual search of records within multiple systems and locations across the whole force area. Such a search however would 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: