Thank you for your communication, your enquiry will be dealt with within
our core office hours and you will be issued with a unique reference
number once your request has been processed and logged. 

 

Essex Police have developed a publication strategy, our aim is to reduce
the demand within the FOI Department and to provide knowledge to the
public to include previous and combined FOI requests together with
relevant links and information.  

  

Please visit this area of our website before submitting FOI requests as
information may already be available.   

 

[1]https://www.essex.police.uk/foi-ai/af/ac...

 

This email and any other accompanying document(s) contain information from
Kent Police and/or Essex Police, which is confidential or privileged. The
information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s)
or bodies to whom it is addressed. The content, including any subsequent
replies, could be disclosable if relating to a criminal investigation or
civil proceedings. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that
any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of the contents of this
information is prohibited. If you have received this email in error,
please notify us immediately by contacting the sender or telephoning Kent
Police on 01622 690690 or Essex Police on 01245 491491, as appropriate.
For further information regarding Kent Police’s or Essex Police’s use of
personal data please go to https://www.kent.police.uk/hyg/privacy/ or
https://www.essex.police.uk/hyg/privacy/. Additionally for our Terms and
Conditions please go to https://www.kent.police.uk/hyg/terms-con...
or https://www.essex.police.uk/hyg/terms-co...

References

Visible links
1. https://www.essex.police.uk/foi-ai/af/ac...

Thank you for your request for information, which has been logged under
the above reference number.     

  

Essex Police will endeavour to respond to your application within 20
working days, as set out within the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(FOIA).  If a time extension is to be applied to your request, you will be
informed; the reason for the extension will also be provided.     

  

Please note that Essex Police may refuse detailed or multiple requests
that are submitted at the same time, as per [1]Section 14 of the FOIA.
Furthermore, if the information sought is already publicly available, you
may be redirected to our publication scheme:
[2]https://www.essex.police.uk/foi-ai/af/ac... or other
official links, such as the [3]PFCC, [4]Home Office or the [5]Office for
National Statistics  

   

Should you need to contact us whilst your information request is being
processed, please email [6][Essex Police request email], quoting
the above reference, and a member of the team will assist.    

 

FOI Team | Information Management Department | Information Rights Section
| Essex Police 

Contact Us: [7]Help us help you | Essex Police

Email: [8][Essex Police request email] 

Address: Information Management Department, Information Rights Section,
Essex Police HQ, PO Box 2, Chelmsford CM2 6DA   

  

For more information about your information rights, or how Essex Police
use your personal data please visit our Privacy Notice via the Essex
Police website
[9]https://www.essex.police.uk/hyg/fpnessex...

  

 

 

 

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Good afternoon,

 

We acknowledge receipt of your further clarification below.

 

Kind regards,

 

Freedom of Information Team

Information Rights | Information Compliance & Assurance | Information
Management Dept. | Professionalism Command

Email: [1][Essex Police request email]

Telephone: 01245 452647 (Open office hours, Monday to Friday or
answerphone facility available)

Address: Information Rights Team, Information Management Dept., Essex
Police HQ, PO Box 2, Chelmsford CM2 6DA 

 

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Thank you for your Freedom of information (FOI) request logged under the
above reference.  

   

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) places two duties on public
authorities:    

   

Unless exemptions apply, the first duty (at [1]Section 1(1)(a) is to
confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held.   

The second duty (at [2]Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that
has been confirmed as being held.    

However, where exemptions are relied upon ([3]Section 17 of FOIA), there
is a requirement to provide the applicant with an explanation either:  

a) stating the fact   

b) detailing the exemption(s) in question and  

c) why the exemption applies (if not apparent).  

   

Information Request – which has been numbered to assist with the
disclosure 

 

Would you please send over statistics for each of Essex's 14 police
districts (Colchester, Tendring, Maldon, Braintree, Uttlesford,
Chelmsford, Harlow, Epping, Brentwood, Thurrock, Basildon, Castle Point,
Rochford, and Southend) *FOR EACH YEAR* from 2018 to 2023 inclusive.
Specifically, can you outline:

 

 1. The total number of dog attacks
 2. The number of dog attacks resulting in arrests
 3. The number of dog attacks resulting in destruction of the dog
 4. The number of dog attacks resulting in charges being brought against
an individual
 5. The top three breeds of dog which carry out dog attacks

 

FOI Duty   

First Duty – Essex Police holds some of the information relating to your
request  

Second Duty – See below  

Fact - It is not possible to extract and verify all the data in your
request  

Exemption - [4]Section 12(1)  

Refusal - [5]Section 17(5) of FOIA  

 

Reasoning – Essex Police are unable to provide a comprehensive data report
to meet this request as the data is not available in a readily extractable
format, nor is it held on a central log. 

  

With regard to Question 5, Essex Police are unable to provide data on the
top three breeds of dogs recorded as carrying out dog attacks by district
as the breed of a dog involved in a dog attack is not readily extractable
information from our crime recording system. To attempt to answer this
question would require a manual examination of each dog attack record in
the time period requested to ascertain whether the believed breed of dog
involved was recorded in the investigation notes, extracting this
information, carrying out further analysis to determine the three most
common recorded breeds and then collating this information into a bespoke
report.

 

To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and
cost limits under the FOIA and would qualify as the creation of data as
the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering
data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement
under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests. 

 

Duty to assist – When refusing a request on cost ([6]Section 12(1)/12(2)),
outside of the act and in effort to assist we can provide the following 

 

Essex Police can however provide the following information:

 

Caveat: The link to information is correct as at 15 March 2024 

 

To address Questions 1, 3 and 5, please see the following article
available via our publication scheme that gives the numbers of dog attack
incidents, the numbers of seized dogs that were destroyed and the numbers
of seized dogs by breed between January 2019 and June 2023 plus the
numbers of offences recorded under the Home Office code ‘008/21 Allowing a
Dog to be Dangerously out of Control’ between April 2015 and December
2023:

 

[7]Dog Attack Incidents and Seizures of Dangerous Dogs 2019 to 2023 |
Essex Police

 

To further address your questions, headline data on recorded crimes and
outcomes by district are available via the Essex Police monthly
performance reports published by the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner
for Essex:

 

[8]Essex Police Performance - Essex Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner
(pfcc.police.uk)

 

The following articles available via our publication scheme may also be of
interest:

 

[9]Dog Attack Data 2018-2022 | Essex Police

 

[10]Dog Attack Incidents 2022-2023 | Essex Police

 

[11]Dog Attacks 2018 to 2023 | Essex Police

 

[12]Types of Dogs Seized by the Police for Being Dangerously Out of
Control 2019 to 2021 | Essex Police

 

Please note the above request will be included within our [13]Publication
Scheme.  

  

Thank you for your interest in Essex Police. 

 

Freedom of Information 

Information Rights Team | Information Compliance & Assurance  

Information Management Dept. | Professionalism Command 

Essex Police 

Email: [14][Essex Police request email] 

Telephone: 01245 452647 (Open office hours, Monday to Friday or
answerphone facility available) 

Address: Information Rights Team, Information Management Dept., Essex
Police HQ, PO Box 2, Chelmsford CM2 6DA   

Services offered by Information Rights Team: [15]Information Rights |
Essex Police 

  

Find out what is happening in your area: [16]Your area | Essex Police  

Contact Us: [17]Help us help you | Essex Police   

Report non-emergency crime online: [18]Report | Essex Police 

How do we use your data: [19]Privacy notice | Essex Police 

 

FOI requests  

Before submission of an FOI Information request, please visit: [20]How to
access information from a public body | ICO and please review our
publications regarding various subjects through [21]Accessing information
| Essex Police to prevent unnecessary requests.  

  

Your right to complain  

  

If you feel your request has not been properly handled, or you are
otherwise dissatisfied with the outcome of your request you have the right
to complain.  

  

Under [22]Section 17(7)(a)(b) FOIA complaints should be submitted within
40 working days from the date of this response and should be addressed to
the Information Rights Manager at the above address or by email to:
[23][Essex Police request email] we will conduct a review to
investigate your complaint and endeavour to reply within 40 working days.
Please explain which aspect of the disclosure you are not satisfied with,
and if your complaint concerns the decision to apply an exemption. 

  

If you are still dissatisfied following our review, you have the right
under the [24]Section 50 FOIA to complain directly to the Information
Commissioner. Before considering your complaint, the Information
Commissioner would normally expect you to have exhausted the complaints
procedures provided by Essex Police.  The Information Commissioner can be
contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF or via [25]Home | ICO

 

From: Info Rights Freedom Essex <[Essex Police request email]>
Sent: 26 February 2024 16:51
To: Daniel Rees <[FOI #1088782 email]>
Subject: RE: FOI 19790 Data – Dog Attacks by District 2018 - 2023

 

Good afternoon,

 

We acknowledge receipt of your further clarification below.

 

Kind regards,

 

Freedom of Information Team

Information Rights | Information Compliance & Assurance | Information
Management Dept. | Professionalism Command

Email: [26][Essex Police request email]

Telephone: 01245 452647 (Open office hours, Monday to Friday or
answerphone facility available)

Address: Information Rights Team, Information Management Dept., Essex
Police HQ, PO Box 2, Chelmsford CM2 6DA 

 

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