Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
1. For the calendar years of 2017 and 2018, please provide yearly totals of: a. The number of car thefts that were reported to your constabulary. b. The number of vehicles that were caught running a red light in your constabulary
2. For the calendar years of 2017 and 2018, please provide yearly totals that specify how many reported car thefts in your constabulary were categorised as ‘keyless theft’ (otherwise known as ‘relay theft’).
3. For the calendar year of 2018, please tell me the five street names in your constabulary where the highest number of car thefts were reported, detailing:
- The name of the street.
- The actual number of car thefts that were reported on each of the five streets during this time period
4. For the calendar year of 2018, please tell me the five camera locations in your constabulary where the highest number of vehicles were caught running a red light, detailing:
- The camera location.
- The actual number of times that each of the five cameras caught vehicles running a red light during this time period.
5. For the calendar year of 2018, please tell me the five car models that were reported stolen the most times in your constabulary, detailing:
- the make and model of the cars.
- how many thefts were reported for each car model.
6. For the calendar year of 2018, please tell me the five car models that were caught running a red light the most in your constabulary, detailing:
- The make and model of the cars.
- How many thefts were reported for each of the five models during this time period.
In Response:
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted within Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police, however cannot be disclosed for the following reasons.
To provide information which meets the criteria of your request, particularly at questions 6, would entail a member of staff manually searching over 2800 records. Even at a conservative estimate of 3 minutes per record, which we have considered as reasonable, we have estimated that to extract this information would take over 140 hours, therefore Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act would apply. This section does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimated that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00
You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Act for your request.
Although excess cost removes Northumbria Police's obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information below, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.
- a. 2017 – 868 2018 - 907 b. 2017 – 2771 2018 – 2805
- We do not classify car thefts in this manner and as such we do not have a flag for keyless theft. A search of the full MO has been carried out using the keywords 'Keyless theft' and 'relay theft'. There was one result from 2018.
3.
|
Street |
Count |
|
|
STATION ROAD |
11 |
|
|
ELSWICK ROAD |
6 |
|
|
WHITLEY ROAD |
|
4 |
|
WOODHORN ROAD |
4 |
|
|
FRONT STREET |
|
4 |
|
Total |
29 |
|
4. There are only 2 red light cameras operational.
A167 Durham Road, Gateshead – 2698 offences for 2018
A1018 North Bridge Street, Sunderland – 107 offences for 2018
5.
|
Make and model |
Count |
|
FORD FOCUS |
55 |
|
VAUXHALL CORSA |
43 |
|
VAUXHALL ASTRA |
38 |
|
VOLKSWAGEN GOLF |
34 |
|
FORD FIESTA |
30 |
|
Total |
200 |
