Sexual Offence Investigations

Request Number: FOI/16649

Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Sexual Offences

Subject: Sexual Offence Investigations

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 (PSNI) 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 (ICO) 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
Please provide the following information for the period 1 January 2015 to the most recent date available:

The total number of mobile phones seized by the PSNI, broken down by calendar year where available, in investigations involving any of the following offences:
a) Controlling prostitution
b) Human trafficking or modern slavery
c) Sexual exploitation
d) Related organised crime offences where prostitution or exploitation formed part of the investigation
e) Whether seized from suspected perpetrators 
f) Or from victims - where these were used to communication with sex buyers

Question 2
Whether PSNI holds aggregated statistical information (for example, management information or summary intelligence reports) indicating:
a) The number of occasions where seized phones contained contact data or communications from individuals seeking to purchase sexual services, and
b) Whether such material was subsequently used to:
c) Support prosecutions under Article 64A (paying for sexual services)
d) Issue cautions, community resolutions, or other formal outcomes
e) Take no further action

If exact figures are not held, please indicate whether estimates, ranges, or summary assessments are held.

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.

The information you seek in your request is not held in a central retrievable format on PSNI database, for questions 1a-1d a total of 2,345 investigations have been identified, to answer question 1e, 1f and all of question 2 we estimate it would take a minimum of approximately 30 minutes to review each incident - to ascertain information in relation to phone data, whether the phone came from the suspect or victim, the data supported the investigation in some way and subsequent police disposal information as a result. This is subject to information requested being readily available on the occurrence. This equates to approximately 1,172 hours of work which is grossly over the cost limits set out in FOIA.

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. 

We can provide responses for questions 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d.

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.