Out of Control Dog (1419A/23)
Request
Please provide figures under the Freedom of Information Act for each year from 2018 to the most recent complete month of 2023.
1) The number of times the offence of an ‘out of control dog causing injury’ (008/21) has been recorded.
2) Please provide the data from Q1 split by victim demographics, including, but not limited to:
- a) Age
- b) Gender
- c) Ethnicity
- d) Relationship between victim and suspect
3) The data from Q1 split by outcome
4) If available, please also provide the data from Q1 split by dog breed.
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). For questions 2d – relationship between victim and suspect and for question 4 – dog breed, this data not available in an easily retrievable format, to locate and retrieve this information we would need to manually review all 5243 records, at 5 minutes per record that would equate to over 430 hours and 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.