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Calls To Assist Private Corporations To Prevent Breach Of Peace

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Stephanie Whitley

Dear Durham Constabulary,

Under the Freedom Of Information Act I request the following information/statistics.

Over the last 5 years the amount of requests the force has has received from TV Licensing/Capita to attend a property to assist with executing a search warrant/prevent a breach of the peace. If possible I would appreciate the total requests actually attended by officers or declined by the force and all broken down by year.

A copy of any guidance/policy/documents relating to assisting TV Licensing (or any private corporations including, but not limited to: Bailiffs, TVL, Councils etc) when attending a property to enforce a warrant, such as deployment criteria, role of impartiality at scene etc.

Over the same period broken down by year, the amount of incidents where the words TV Licence/TV Licensing or BBC are reported and the reason for report, i.e. harassment, assault etc.

Yours faithfully,

Stephanie Whitley

Freedom of Information, Durham Constabulary

Due to the Coronavirus/COVID 19 pandemic and the  changing circumstances 
for all, the Unit must prioritise essential safeguarding work for the 
health and social care sector, and also for the Family Court. Delays in 
other areas are likely to occur and may fall outside any statutory or 
other expected timescales. We apologise for any inconvenience this may 
cause, we will of course endeavour to process your request as soon as 
practicable. If your request is not urgent or can be retracted at any 
stage, please let us know as soon as possible via our published email 
addresses. From Monday 13^th July   2020, our office re-opened but we only
have very limited numbers of staff in the Office and we will  therefore
not be able to regularly collect correspondence sent via post. We thank 
you for your understanding and support and wish you and your family well 
during these uncertain times.

DURHAM CONSTABULARY, Protecting Neighbourhoods, Tackling Criminals,
Solving Problems…Around the Clock

NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICING: Use your postcode to get access to local news and
events from your Neighbourhood Policing Team, at
https://www.durham.police.uk

This email carries a disclaimer, a copy of which may be read at
https://www.durham.police.uk/Pages/E-Mai...

Freedom of Information, Durham Constabulary

1 Attachment

Good morning,

Please find attached a response to your Freedom of Information request.

Decision Maker
Information Rights & Disclosure Unit
Business Innovation & Development Command
Durham Constabulary
Police Headquaters
Akyley Heads
Durham DH1 5TT

Our Values & Vision:
Positive | Fair | Courageous | Inclusive | With Integrity
Protecting Neighbourhoods, Tackling Criminals, Solving Problems

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Stephanie Whitley

Dear Durham Constabulary,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Durham Constabulary's handling of my FOI request 'Calls To Assist Private Corporations To Prevent Breach Of Peace'.

I appreciate that there is a pandemic at the moment however I feel you have inappropriately used an exemption under FOI to refuse. You have used the exemption of burdensome, to make it clear I have never send a request to your organisation before and the information I request is in the public interest. Using section 14 and classing this as a vexatious request in my opinion is wholly unacceptable virtue of the fact you have invited me me to submit the same request at a later date. Unfortunately the FOIA does not give exemption to fulfilling requests purely on the grounds of how busy an organisation is and if staff are concentrating efforts elsewhere.
I therefore ask you reconsider the exemption you have inappropriately used or I will have to report the breach to the ICO office.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

Stephanie Whitley

Freedom of Information, Durham Constabulary

Due to the Coronavirus/COVID 19 pandemic and the changing circumstances
for all, the Unit must prioritise essential safeguarding work for the
health and social care sector, and also for the Family Court. Delays in
other areas are likely to occur and may fall outside any statutory or
other expected timescales. We apologise for any inconvenience this may
cause, we will of course endeavour to process your request as soon as
practicable. If your enquiry and/or request is not urgent or can be
retracted at any stage, please let us know as soon as possible via our
published email addresses. From Thursday 5th November 2020, our Office is
closed and we will therefore not be able to collect correspondence sent
via post. We thank you for your understanding and support and wish you and
your family well during these uncertain times.
DURHAM CONSTABULARY, Protecting Neighbourhoods, Tackling Criminals,
Solving Problems…Around the Clock

NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICING: Use your postcode to get access to local news and
events from your Neighbourhood Policing Team, at
https://www.durham.police.uk

This email carries a disclaimer, a copy of which may be read at
https://www.durham.police.uk/Pages/E-Mai...

Freedom of Information, Durham Constabulary

Good afternoon,

We have received your request for an internal review.
It will be passed to the internal reviewer who will contact you in due course.

Kind regards,

Decision Maker
Information Rights & Disclosure Unit
Business Innovation & Development Command
Durham Constabulary
Police Headquaters
Akyley Heads
Durham DH1 5TT

Our Values & Vision:
Positive | Fair | Courageous | Inclusive | With Integrity
Protecting Neighbourhoods, Tackling Criminals, Solving Problems

show quoted sections

Freedom of Information, Durham Constabulary

Good afternoon,

I refer to your email of the 6th November 2020, shown in full below, in which you seek an Internal Review of the Constabulary’s handling of the Freedom of Information request dated 01/11/2020 received on 02/11/2020. .

The Internal Review process allows for the original decision to be overturned, modified or upheld in full.

I can confirm that I have undertaken an internal review of your information request FOI858/20. In the circumstances of this request I have consulted with the Communications Team. .

In accordance with Section 17(5) this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for Durham Constabulary to comply with Section 1 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Unfortunately, your request exceeds the fees limit, in that in order to ascertain whether Durham Constabulary holds any information relevant to this request would require an extensive search of the Communications system to ascertain if any information relevant to the first request is held. Please see the Section 16 Freedom of Information Act advice in this review.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption from a public authority’s obligation to comply with a request for information where the cost of compliance is estimated to exceed the appropriate limit.

Section 12 – the legislation:

The provisions of section 12(2) of the Act is engaged in response to your request as Durham Constabulary are unable to confirm what information it might hold in relation to your request because to do so would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ – i.e. the cost limit. Section 12 of the Act provides:

(1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

(2) Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.

These sections of the Act provide Durham Constabulary is not obliged to comply with its duties under section 1(1) of the Act – i.e. our duty to confirm or deny what information is or is not held, and to supply any information held in response to a request – if to do so would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’.

The ‘appropriate limit’ is defined in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Section 3 and 4 of those regulations provide that an authority can take into account the costs it reasonable expects to incur in relation to a Freedom of Information request to the following four activities associated with handling that request:

(a) Determining whether or not it holds the information
(b) Locating that information, or document(s) which might contain the information
(c) Retrieving the information, and
(d) Extracting the information from a document containing it

The regulations then confirm that the appropriate limit (in the case of a body such as the as a Police Force) is £450 and that any work estimated or carried out in respect of the above four activities is to be estimated at a rate of £25 per hour.

Section 16 Advice and Assistance
In accordance with Section 16 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act a public authority is obliged to provide advice and assistance, so far as it is reasonable to expect the authority to do so, to persons who propose to make, or have made, requests for information.
In this instance to carry out the required searches in relation to request one would require the Communications system to be interrogated for keywords. The system would search of the keywords in any part of the call log. Following each search, which is limited to 90 days of data per search, all the identified logs retrieved would require a manual review to ascertain whether any relevant information is held. To conduct such for 5 years of data would require at least 20 separate searches to be carried out. In addition the search method would disrupt the Communications system endangering the lives of the public reporting emergency incidents as well as hindering the ability of officers to respond to them. The Communications system can be searched on caller name, however in most cases such calls for assistance as described in the request are likely to be made by an individual and the purpose of the call would only become clear during the call. Therefore to search on this method would require every call to be examined. This Force receives approximately 400,000 999/101 calls a year. Again such a search would be cost prohibitive. Under the circumstances I cannot, unfortunately, provide advice on how the request could be refined in order to retrieve relevant information within cost.

This concludes the Internal Review. If you are not satisfied with the Internal Review decision you have the right to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone number: 01625 5745 700; website: www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Internal Reviewer
Business Innovation & Development Command Durham Constabulary

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Stephanie Whitley please sign in and let everyone know.