Wildlife Crime

Request Number: [FOI/14344]

Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Wildlife

Subject: Wildlife Crime

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: https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.pdf

Request 1

What department currently deals with allegations of wildlife crime within your force?

Request 2

How many officers or staff are currently employed by your force?

Request 3

How many incidents of wildlife crime, including but not limited to hunting, baiting, wildlife disturbance, poaching, illegal fishing, egg theft, offences against badgers, bats, birds of prey, have been reported to the force within the last 5 years?

Request 4

How many incidents of wildlife crime resulted in a charge for the suspect within the last 5 years

Request 5

How many incidents of wildlife crime resulted in a conviction within the last 5 years

Request 6

How many incidents of wildlife crime resulted in Proceeds of Crime Act penalties following conviction within the last 5 years

Request 7

How many officers or staff members within your force have been trained in wildlife crime investigation

Request 8

How many officers or staff within your force are Accredited Financial Investigators

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.

Request 3 brings the request in full over cost.

Whilst the information is held electronically, it is not retrievable via automated processes. Wildlife and animal welfare offences are not subject to Home Office Crime Recording Rules and therefore any statistics requested on this subject will involve a manual examination of each incident in order to ensure accuracy.

For example, for 2021 alone, there were 5,363 calls for service relating to animals and wildlife. Each of these individual incidents would need to be cross-referenced and cross-examined across multiple databases in order to retrieve the requested information. This is estimated to take 15 minutes per incident, totalling 1,340 hours approximately. Furthermore, additional time would need to be taken in order to retrieve the information requested in requests 4, 5 and 6.

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.

Request 1 – This can be responded to within cost.

Request 2 – This information is publically available at the following link: Strength of Police Service Statistics | PSNI

Requests 3, 4, 5 and 6 – Unfortunately, due to the way in which the information is stored, we are unable to refine this request. Requests 4, 5 and 6 are reliant upon the information retrieved for request 3, and therefore cannot be refined or responded to within cost.

Requests 7 and 8 – These can be responded to 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.