Absconding Prisoners

Request Number: FOI/16147

Category: Operational policing, Investigations and Events - Investigations and Operations

Subject: Absconding Prisoners

Request and Answer: 
Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) We can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does hold the information you have requested however it is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and this will be further explained below. PSNI have followed the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance ‘Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit’ in relation to this request, which also provides further detail on the application of Section 12(1) of the FOIA. This guidance is available on the ICO website at the following link:
ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi/guide-to-managing-an-foi-request/charging-a-fee-and-cost-limits/

Question 1
Since 2020, broken down by year, please outline the number of prisoners who have been unlawfully at large from NI's prisons which the PSNI has been informed of. 

Question 2
Please provide the offence/offences for which each absconding prisoner was serving time for.

Question 3
Please detail which prison they absconded from.

Question 4
Please detail how long each prisoner was at large for and how many are still at large, detailing how many days they have currently been at large for

Question 5
What were the circumstances in which the prisoner absconded, e.g not returning from day release etc

Question 6
How many cases from the above is suspected that the prisoner travelled to the Republic of Ireland/had to be extradited from ROI to NI.

Question 7
What role did the PSNI play in each case.

Answer
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Police Service of Northern Ireland, when refusing to provide such information (because the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit) to provide you the applicant with a notice which states that fact.

It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 12 of FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. The estimate must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case. The ‘appropriate limit’ is currently £600 for central government and £450 for all other public authorities including PSNI. The relevant Regulations which define the appropriate limit for section 12 purposes are The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulation 2004 SI 2004 No 3244. These are known as the ‘Fees Regulations’ for brevity.

Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations states that a public authority can take into account the costs it reasonably expects to incur in carrying out the following permitted activities in complying with the request:

(i) determining whether the information is held;
(ii) locating the information, or a document containing it;
(iii) retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
(iv) extracting the information from a document containing it.

Under those regulations PSNI can calculate the time spent on each of these permitted activities at £25 per hour (thus if the activity(s) takes more than 18 hours PSNI will be in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’).

When a public authority is estimating whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if the conditions laid out in Regulation 5 of the Fees Regulations can be satisfied. Those conditions require the requests to be:

• made by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
• made for the same or similar information; and
• received by the public authority within any period of 60 consecutive working days.

Regulation 5(2) of the Fees Regulations requires that the requests which are to be aggregated relate “to any extent” to the same or similar information. This is quite a wide test but public authorities should still ensure that the requests meet this requirement.

Enquiries made in relation to your request has identified that retrieval of information to respond to your request would exceed the FOI legislative cost of 18 hours as set by the Secretary of State.

Question 1 brings the request in full over cost.

Whilst the information is held electronically, it is not retrievable via automated processes. The process for logging prison absconders on NICHE is not standardised - sometimes they will be flagged as 'Escapees' or 'Arrest Sought', but these flags may be used in other contexts as well. During the period requested, there were 1,207 of these flags. Using a conservative estimate of 2 minutes per flag, to retrieve the information requested would take approximately 40 hours, bringing the request in full over cost.

The remaining questions rely on information requested in Question 1, therefore these cannot be answered.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter should be considered as a Refusal Notice, and the request has therefore been closed. 

Advice and assistance
You may wish to submit a refined request in order that the cost of complying with your request may be facilitated within the ‘appropriate limit’. In compliance with Section 16 of the Act, we have considered how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit.

If the date range were reduced, we may be able to provide a response, subject to exemptions. We wish to make you aware however, that in order to obtain the most accurate information, these questions should be directed to NI Prison Service (Submit a freedom of information request to Northern Ireland Prison Service | Department of Justice). 

Submission of a refined request would be treated as a new request, and considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, including consideration of relevant Part II exemptions.