Domestic Abuse (165A/22)
Request
- The number of recorded offences flagged as domestic abuse-related for the following crimes: violence against the person, sexual offences, miscellaneous crimes, public order offences, criminal damage and arson, other offences. I would like these daily between 1st January 2018 and 31st July 2020.
- The number of calls-for-service for domestic incidents, by caller type (e.g. victim or third party) for the following dates given below. I would like these daily between 1st January 2018 and 31st July 2020.
If daily data is not possible within the cost/time constraints of the FOI Act then please could these be provided for the following dates:
Week commencing 1 January
Week commencing 8 January
Week commencing 15 January
Week commencing 22 January
Week commencing 29 January
Week commencing 5 February
Week commencing 12 February
Week commencing 19 February
Week commencing 26 February
Week commencing 4 March
Week commencing 11 March
Week commencing 18 March
Week commencing 25 March
Week commencing 1 April
Week commencing 8 April
Week commencing 15 April
Week commencing 22 April
Week commencing 29 April
Week commencing 6 May
Week commencing 13 May
Week commencing 20 May
Week commencing 27 May
Week commencing 3 June
Week commencing 10 June
Week commencing 17 June
Week commencing 24 June
Week commencing 1 July
For the years 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Response
Unfortunately 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 file 165A_22_attachment.xlsx). 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
It is not possible to determine the caller status of calls for service, without conducting a manual review of each log. This however would involve the examination of tens of thousands of records and researching each individual case 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: