Missing Persons Statistics

Request: FOI/13624

Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Missing Person

Subject: Missing Persons Statistics

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:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf

Request
I am a police constable serving with Essex Police entering my third year of service. I joined through the PCDA entry route and so I am currently two thirds of my way through a degree in Professional Policing, and as a part of my third year I am required to write a dissertation on an Evidence-Based topic of my choosing in Policing. My chosen topic of research for my dissertation is a review of the College of Policing and ACPO guidance around the grading and assessment of missing persons and children, and am approaching all Home Office forces for their assistance in the research and evidence for this review.

Where possible, can you please provide me with the following in regards to missing persons:

Request 1
Number of individual adults reported missing in the last rolling twelve months.

Request 2
Total number of missing “periods” reported to your force (1 adult reported as missing twice would be two “periods).

Request 3
Percentage of adults who are known to have been caused harm during a missing person episode.

Request 4
Percentage of adults who are known to have caused themselves harm during a missing person episode.

Request 5
Percentage of these adults reported as missing who could be considered as “frequent mispers” (10+ episodes in a rolling twelve month period).

Request 6
Number of individual children reported missing in the last rolling twelve months.

Request 7
Total number of missing “periods” for children.

Request 8
Total number of these children reported missing from care homes.

Request 9
Percentage of children who have been caused harm during a missing person episode.

Request 10
Percentage of children who have caused themselves harm during a missing person episode.

Request 11
Percentage of these children that have been reported as missing who could be considered as “frequent mispers” (20+ episodes in a rolling twelve month period).

Request 12
Total number of low risk missing persons (for each of the last 5 years)

Request 13
Average length of time missing for low risk missing persons (for each of the last 5 years)

Request 14
Number of low risk missing persons who have been found deceased during a missing period (for each of the last 5 years)

Request 15
Total number of medium risk missing persons (for each of the last 5 years)

Request 16
Average length of time missing for medium risk missing persons (for each of the last 5 years)

Request 17
Number of medium risk missing persons who have been found deceased during a missing period (for each of the last 5 years)

Request 18
Total number of high risk missing persons (for each of the last 5 years)

Request 19
Average length of time missing for high risk missing persons (for each of the last 5 years)

Request 20
Number of high risk missing persons who have been found deceased during a missing period (for each of the last 5 years)

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.

Requests 3-5 and 9-11 bring the request in full over cost.

Whilst the information is held electronically, it is not recorded in a searchable format. A manual examination of the 10,000 missing persons reports from the last 12 months would be required. Using a conservative estimate of 5 minutes per record, it would take approximately 833 hours, exceed the legislative cost of 18 hours.

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.

Requests 1-2, 6-8, and 12-20: These requests can be answered within cost.

Requests 3-5 and 9-11: Unfortunately, due to the way in which the information is stored, we are unable to provide refinement for these requests.

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.