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.     

  

Freedom of Information 

Information Rights Team | Information Compliance & Assurance  

Information Management Dept. | Professionalism Command 

Essex Police 

Email: [7][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: [8]Information Rights | Essex
Police 

  

Find out what is happening in your area: [9]Your area | Essex Police  

Contact Us: [10]Help us help you | Essex Police   

Report non-emergency crime online: [11]Report | Essex Police 

How do we use your data : [12]Privacy notice | Essex Police 

 

 

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Thank you for your patience in regard to your request and we acknowledge
you are awaiting a response.  We must firstly apologise for the lack of
updates from this department as the level of service provided has been
below what is expected.   

 

Your request has been sent to our Performance Analysis Unit (PAU) for
review.  However, at this current time, due to the considerable backlog of
FOI requests with PAU, we are unable to give you a progress update on when
you might receive a response. 

 

Once again, please accept our apologies for the delay you have
experienced. 

 

Kind regards 

 

Freedom of Information

Information Rights Team | Information Compliance & Assurance

Information Management Dept. | Professionalism Command

Essex Police

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 

Services offered by Information Rights Team: [2]Information Rights | Essex
Police

 

Find out what is happening in your area: [3]Your area | Essex Police

Contact Us: [4]Help us help you | Essex Police 

Report non-emergency crime online: [5]Report | Essex Police

How do we use your data: [6]Privacy notice | Essex Police

 

 

 

 

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

Please accept our apologies in respect of the delay you have experienced,
we have not met the standard of service expected in respect of timeliness.
To explain, we are currently upskilling our workforce in the specialist
area of Freedom of Information, so that we are better equipped to meet the
growing demand for information under this right. We are working hard to
improve our service in this area.

We are now in a position to dedicate time to review our outstanding work
and can respond as below.

 

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

 

I write to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requesting
information on the number of knife and bladed article seizures carried out
by Essex Police.

 

1. For the individual years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, would
you be able to provide data pertaining to the number of incidents which
have resulted in Essex Police taking bladed articles off members of the
public.

 

2. Would you also be able to provide data pertaining to the number of
knives and bladed articles seized (as there may be more bladed articles
seized than actual incidents that have involved Essex Police taking knives
off members of the public).

 

Would you be able to provide the data outlined above for the following
police areas:

 

• Colchester

• Tendring

• Maldon

• Braintree

• Uttlesford

• Chelmsford

• Harlow

• Epping

• Brentwood

• Thurrock

• Basildon

• Castle Point

• Rochford

• Southend

 

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 since 2018 is not available in a readily
extractable format, nor is it held on a central log. 

  

With regard to Question 1, Essex Police are unable to report on the
numbers of incidents recorded between 2018 and 2023 which resulted in a
bladed item being seized from a member of the public as this is not
readily extractable information from our incident recording system. This
would require a manual examination of each incident report with a knife
flag recorded in the desired time period to ascertain whether the physical
seizure of a bladed item by an officer was recorded in the incident notes,
extracting this information and then collating it into a bespoke report.

 

To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and
cost limits under the FOIA and would additionally 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 links to information are correct as at 21 May 2024

 

Headline data on Possession of Weapons offences by Essex policing district
between 2018 and 2023 can be found within the monthly Essex Police
performance reports published by the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner
for Essex:

 

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

 

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

 

[8]Knife/Weapon Arrest Statistics Including Under 18s 2018 to 2023 | Essex
Police

 

[9]Charges for Possession of a Bladed Article | Essex Police

 

Please note the above request will be included within our [10]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: [11][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: [12]Information Rights |
Essex Police 

  

Find out what is happening in your area: [13]Your area | Essex Police  

Contact Us: [14]Help us help you | Essex Police   

Report non-emergency crime online: [15]Report | Essex Police 

How do we use your data: [16]Privacy notice | Essex Police 

 

FOI requests  

Before submission of an FOI Information request, please visit: [17]How to
access information from a public body | ICO and please review our
publications regarding various subjects through [18]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 [19]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:
[20][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 [21]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 [22]Home | ICO

 

From: Info Rights Freedom Essex <[Essex Police request email]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 6, 2024 9:32 AM
To: Daniel Rees <[FOI #1096903 email]>
Subject: FOI 19900 Seizure of Knives and Bladed Articles 2018-2023

 

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 [23]Section 14 of the FOIA.
Furthermore, if the information sought is already publicly available, you
may be redirected to our publication scheme:
[24]https://www.essex.police.uk/foi-ai/af/ac... or other
official links, such as the [25]PFCC, [26]Home Office or the [27]Office
for National Statistics   

    

Should you need to contact us whilst your information request is being
processed, please email [28][Essex Police request email], quoting
the above reference, and a member of the team will assist.     

  

Freedom of Information 

Information Rights Team | Information Compliance & Assurance  

Information Management Dept. | Professionalism Command 

Essex Police 

Email: [29][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: [30]Information Rights |
Essex Police 

  

Find out what is happening in your area: [31]Your area | Essex Police  

Contact Us: [32]Help us help you | Essex Police   

Report non-emergency crime online: [33]Report | Essex Police 

How do we use your data : [34]Privacy notice | Essex Police 

 

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