FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST
Request Number:
F-2019-00357
Keyword:
Crime
Subject:
From 1990 Unsolved Murders
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) I 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.
Request
I am writing to request a list of unsolved cold case murders from 1990 - present day in Northern
Ireland
Specifically, I am looking only for the unsolved murders of female adults and children (all ages and
genders).
Answers
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’).
The information requested is not held in a central location within PSNI and in addition is held in both
a manual and electronic format. I contacted the relevant Departments and one of the Departments
‘ Legacy Investigation Branch’ (LIB) advised that the information is not held on a central database
and would require a manual review of all 3222 cases that fall within the remit of ‘legacy’ related
cases. In addition Crime Operations Department advised that from the year 2004, there have been in
excess of 400 incidents relating to murder, manslaughter and suspicious deaths. To identify if any of
them remain
unsolved would involve looking at the original incident on the computer system NICHE
and manually reviewing the individual case papers to identify if a suspect was identified and arrested.
The information would then require further intervention to extract data specifically for females and
children. In addition not all the cases are held electronically and would require manual retrieval.
Allowing a conservative estimate of 10 minutes per case totals over 60 hours, and this is for the
Crime Operations Departments cases alone. It is therefore estimated that to respond to your request
would grossly exceed the FOI legislative cost of 18 hours as set by the ‘Secretary of State’.
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.
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, I have considered
how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit unfortunately due to the PSNI
recording system on this occasion I am unable to offer any refinement.
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.
If you have any queries regarding your request or this decision please do not hesitate to contact me
on 028 9070 0164. When contacting the Freedom of Information Team, please quote the reference
number listed at the beginning of this letter.
If you are dissatisfied in any way with the handling of your request, you have the right to request a
review. You should do this as soon as possible or in any case within two months of the date of issue
of this letter. In the event that you require a review to be undertaken, you can do so by writing to the
Head of Freedom of Information, PSNI Headquarters, 65 Knock Road, Belfast, BT5 6LE or by
emailing
xxx@xxxx.xxx.xxxxxx.xx. If following an internal review, carried out by an independent decision maker, you were to remain
dissatisfied in any way with the handling of the request you may make a complaint, under Section 50
of the Freedom of Information Act, to the Information Commissioner’s Office and ask that they
investigate whether the PSNI has complied with the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. You
can write to the Information Commissioner at Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. In most circumstances the Information Commissioner
will not investigate a complaint unless an internal review procedure has been carried out, however
the Commissioner has the option to investigate the matter at his discretion.
Please be advised that PSNI replies under Freedom of Information may be released into the public
domain via our website @
www.psni.police.uk
Personal details in respect of your request have, where applicable, been removed to protect
confidentiality.