Vandalism/Hate Crime - Road Signs

Request Number: FOI/16039

Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Hate Crime and Equality

Subject: Vandalism/Hate Crime - Road Signs

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 some of 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 
I am writing to request the following information held by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) regarding incidents of Hate Crimes/vandalism to road signs containing the name "Londonderry", specifically where the "London" part of the name has been painted over, covered, or otherwise defaced.

Question 1
The number of reports received by the PSNI regarding such Hate Crimes/ vandalism incidents.

Question 2
The number of investigations initiated in response to these reports.

Question 3
Whether these incidents have been classified as Hate Crimes by the PSNI if so how many times.

Question 4 
The number of investigations that have resulted in the identification and/or apprehension of offenders.

Question 5
The number of occasions the PSNI has issued press releases to local media outlets concerning these Hate Crimes / vandalism incidents and describing them as hate crimes.

Question 6
The number of interviews or media appearances (including television, radio, or print) by PSNI representatives on platforms such as BBC NI TV, Radio Ulster, UTV, Belfast Telegraph, Irish News, or local radio stations in which these incidents were discussed and classed as Hate Crimes.

Question 7
The reported cost of repairs or replacements provided by the relevant government departments.

Clarification Sought
Could you provide a timeframe within which you are seeking data for?

Are there any specific areas that you are seeking this data for or is it the whole of Northern Ireland?

Clarification Received
If timeframe is last 12 months. Districts exclude, Belfast, Newtownards & North Down, Lisburn & Castlereagh.

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.

To retrieve this information will require a search to be conducted of the Vuelio database.  For the 12 month period 1st October 2024 – 16th October 2025 this will necessitate a search of over 4,000 records.  Each record will take approximately 1-2 minutes to search in order to confirm whether they relate to damage to Derry/Londonderry road signs and whether there is mention of a Hate Crime. To manually examine this many records would take around 100 hours, taking this request grossly over the 18 hour cost limit set out under the 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.

Unfortunately, due the way in which we hold this information, we are unable to suggest a refinement that would bring this request under the appropriate limit.

We wish to advise you that the information sought in Question 7 is not held by the PSNI.  Please liaise directly with the relevant District Council or Government Department for that information.

Please find further information on PSNI’s statistics on Hate Crimes - https://www.psni.police.uk/foi-disclosure-log/monthly-hate-crime-figures