Stop and Search Incidents Involving Wildlife

Request Number: FOI/15236

Category: Policing Themes, Operations and Investigations- Stop and Search

Subject: Stop and Search Incidents Involving Wildlife

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/

Request 1
Please provide the following data held by your force for the period from 1 January 2022 to the present (or the most recent available date)
The total number of stop and search incidents where the object of the search included offensive weapons

Request 2
The total number of stop and search incidents where the object of the search included offensive weapons and there was a suspected or alleged link to wildlife crime.

Request 3
Of the incidents involving wildlife crime recorded on police intelligence recording systems in addition to crime recording systems, how many involved the possession, suspected possession, or use of catapults?
For the searches described in point 2, please provide a breakdown of
3A. The outcome of each search (e.g. no further action, arrest, charge, summons, caution).
3B. The number of subjects aged 1.) Under 11 years old 2.) Between 11-18 years old.
3C. Whether there were any suspected links to other forms of antisocial behaviour.
3D. The specific offences alleged or identified (e.g. poaching, hunting with dogs, criminal damage to wildlife, etc.).

Request 4
If available, please provide any guidance, policy, or briefing documents used by your force regarding stop and search in the context of wildlife crime or catapult-related offences.

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.

PSNI can confirm that while the information requested is held, it is not held in a retrievable manner. We can advise that during the period 1 January 2022 to 31 March 2025 3,940 persons were stopped and searched under the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order for offensive weapons. In order for us to retrieve the requested data for Requests 2, 3A, 3B, 3C and 3D we would need to conduct a manual trawl of each stop and search record to locate and extract the relevant information for each request. Even if this took as little as 1 minute per record, this still would take over 65 hours - vastly exceeding the legislative timeframe. It is likely that it would take much longer.

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. 

In terms of refinement for Request 2 - PSNI can confirm that we do hold the number of persons stopped and searched under Article 25 Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 where the objective of the search is for evidence of the commission of an offence under this legislation, but not specifically for possession of an offensive weapon.  Subsequently Requests 3A and 3B could also be answered in relation to those searches under Article 25 Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, if a newly refined request was to be submitted. We can further advise that we can answer Request 4 within cost.

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.