Missing Persons (535A/22)
Request
I am seeking to request information regarding persons reported as missing to the police in the last 5 years.
I am kindly requesting the following two things:
- MPU Summary Report for missing persons for 5 calendar years (Date reported from 01/01/2017 – Date reported to 31/12/2021).
- Local authority Summary Report for missing persons for 5 calendar years (Date reported from 01/01/2017 – Date reported to 31/12/2021)
Response
Please see attached. Please note however, with regard to the ‘MPU Summary Reports’. Our system only returns these reports in Financial Years (i.e. 01 April to 31 March) and also, despite our best efforts and multiple attempts, our system will not return a report for 2020/2021 and therefore we are unable to provide this.
In addition to the attached response West Midlands Police can neither confirm nor deny that it holds any other information relevant to this request as the duty in Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply by virtue of the following exemption:
Section 23(5) – Information supplied by, or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters
Section 23 is a class based absolute exemption and there is no requirement to consider the public interest in this case.
Confirming or denying the existence of whether any other information is held would contravene the constrictions laid out within Section 23 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in that this stipulates a generic bar on disclosure of any information supplied by, or concerning, certain security bodies.
This exemption and explanatory notes are shown here:
No inference can be taken from this refusal that any further information relevant to your request does or does not exist.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.
Attachments
MPU Report – West Midlands Police-Apr16-Mar17
MPU Report – West Midlands Police-Apr17-Mar18
MPU Report – West Midlands Police-Apr18-Mar19
MPU Report – West Midlands Police-Apr19-Mar20