Crime and Policing Analysis Unit
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
www.gov.uk/home-office
Our Ref: FOI 61595
11 January 2021
Dear Alexander Markham,
Thank you for your email of 8 December 2020 in which you ask for the number of racially
or religiously aggravated offences up to August/September 2020, along with the ethnicity
breakdown of such offences.
Your request has been handled as a request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
I can confirm that the Home Office holds some of the information that you have requested.
However, after careful consideration we have decided that the information is exempt from
disclosure under section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act. This provides that
information can be withheld if it is intended for future publication.
The Home Office collects and publishes information on racially or religiously aggravated
offences as part of the main police recorded crime collection, available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
The next release, covering the period to September 2020, is scheduled for publication in
February 2021.
The Home Office does not currently collect information on the ethnicity, nor the perceived
ethnicity, of victims of racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police.
Individual police forces may hold this information.
If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review
of our handling of your request by submitting a complaint within two months to
xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx, quoting reference
61595. If you ask for an internal review,
it would be helpful if you could say why you are dissatisfied with the response.
As part of any internal review the Department's handling of your information request would
be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. If you
were to remain dissatisfied after an internal review, you would have a right of complaint to
the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the FOIA.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Linehan
Crime and Policing Analysis Unit