Stalking Protection Orders (1573A/23)
Request
How many application packs for Stalking Protection Orders were completed by police officers/staff in West Midlands Police during the period 01 May 2022 – 31 December 2022? (If possible, please indicate the month of application. If this is too onerous, a total is sufficient).
Of these application packs, how many were authorised by superintendents (or equivalent) and put before the court?
Of the Stalking Protection Orders put before the court by West Midlands Police in the period 01 May 2022 – 31 December 2022, how many were granted by the court?
How many application packs for Interim Stalking Protection Orders were completed by police officers/staff in West Midlands Police during the period 01 May 2022 – 31 December 2022? (If possible, please indicate the month of application. If this is too onerous, a total is sufficient).
Of these application packs, how many were authorised by superintendents (or equivalent) and put before the court?
Of the Interim Stalking Protection Orders put before the court by West Midlands Police in the period 01 May 2022 – 31 December 2022, how many were granted by the court?
How many stalking incidents were recorded by West Midlands Police in the period 01 May 2022 – 31 December 2022? (If possible, please indicate the month of application. If this is too onerous, a total is sufficient).
If this data is available, please indicate how many of these incidents were flagged as cyber-dependant and/or cyber-enabled.
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). In order to answer question 5a, we would need to conduct a manual review of all 4,523 records, if we allowed 5 minutes for each record this would equate to 376 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.