Exempt Accommodation (1103A/21)
Request
1) In each of the last 5 years, what is the total number of crimes reported in Birmingham involving residents in Exempt Accommodation?
2) Please provide copies of any studies or reports carried out by West Midlands Police into the impact of Exempt Accommodation on policing.
Response
With regard to question 2 – No recorded information held
With regard to question 1 – 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. This is because there are no recording categories to denote the housing status of those involved in a crime. Therefore, the only way to identify if this information has been captured would be to manually review the case file of every offence recorded in Birmingham for the last 5 years. However, even then this may not have been recorded. For the 2020-21 financial year alone there were approximately 124,000 offences recorded in Birmingham. Therefore, to conduct this manual would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
Unfortunately, due to the reasons outlined above, I am unable to suggest any practical way in which the remainder of your request may be modified in order to satisfy your query or bring it within the 18 hours stipulated by the Regulations.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here:
Attachments
No attachments