Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Thank you for your email received today in which you make a request for
information that Northumbria Police may hold.

We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response should be
provided to you by 16/10/13.

Yours sincerely

Jan Mcewan

Disclosure Section

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

The information contained in this message and any attachment(s) is confidential and intended only for the attention of the named organisation or individual to whom it is addressed. The message may contain information that is covered by legal, professional or other privilege. No mistake in transmission is intended to waive or compromise any such privilege. This message has been sent over public networks and the sender cannot be held responsible for its integrity.

If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken in reliance of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited, and is contrary to the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988 and of the Data Protection Act, 1998.

Any views expressed are those of the sender and, unless specifically stated, do not necessarily represent the view of Northumbria Police.

We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage sustained as a result of software viruses. It is your responsibility to carry out such virus checking as is necessary.

If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by e-mail at once and delete the message immediately.

For more information about Northumbria Police please visit our website - http://www.northumbria.police.uk

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

Thank you for your e mail dated 18 September 2013 in which you made a
request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria
Police.

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of
access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police),
subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
 
You asked:

Please could you inform me how many instances of the theft of meat have
you have recorded and dealt with in the last 12 months from shops and
supermarkets in the region.

Additionally, please can you provided numbers of the arrests and charges
related to these?

And if it possible, please can you shed some light on the types of meat
stolen?

In response:

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I
provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the
Strategy and Performance Unit of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that
the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police however
can not be disclosed for the following reasons.
The information requested is not held in a retrievable format that would
be searchable within the prescribed time allowed. There is no code that
would allow us to search for 'theft of meat' and searches for all crimes
that relate to shoplifting and theft where the property is recorded as
either 'foodstuff' or 'groceries' would need to be viewed to establish
which if any related to meat. Initial searches for the time period
specified have brought back in excess of 2000 crimes.  Each of which would
require manual review to establish if meat was taken, and if so, what
kind.  Even at a conservative estimate of 2 minutes per record, which we
have considered as reasonable,  we have estimated that to locate and
 extract this information would take over 66 hours, therefore Section 12
of the Freedom of Information Act would apply.  This section does not
oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the
authority estimated that the cost of complying with the request would
exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00

You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the
Act for that part of your request.

When applying Section 12 exemption our duty to assist under Section 16 of
the Act would normally entail that we contact you to determine whether it
is possible to refine the scope of your request to bring it within the
cost limits.  However, from the information we have outlined above I see
no reasonable way in which we can do so.

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a
specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an
indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another.
 Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the
procedures used locally in capturing the data.  For this reason responses
between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative
purposes.

You may be interested to know that Northumbria Police routinely publish
information via the Disclosure Log.  The aim of the Disclosure Log is to
promote openness and transparency by voluntarily placing information into
the public arena.

The Disclosure Log contains copies of some of the information that has
been disclosed by Northumbria Police in response to requests made under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Whilst it is not possible to publish all responses we will endeavour to
publish those where we feel that the information disclosed is in the
public interest.

The Disclosure Log will be updated once responses have been sent to the
requester.

I have provided the relevant link below.

[1]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/dis...

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual
property rights of Northumbria Police.  Your use of the information must
be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
(as amended) or such other applicable legislation.  In particular, you
must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

How to complain

If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have
handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue
informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our
complaints procedure which is attached.

If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and
reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain
whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.

Yours sincerely

Michael Cleugh
Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor
Direct Dial:  0191 2956941
[NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED]

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

The information contained in this message and any attachment(s) is
confidential and intended only for the attention of the named organisation
or individual to whom it is addressed.  The message may contain
information that is covered by legal, professional or other privilege.  No
mistake in transmission is intended to waive or compromise any such
privilege.  This message has been sent over public networks and the sender
cannot be held responsible for its integrity.

If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure,
copying, distribution or action taken in reliance of the information
contained herein is strictly prohibited, and is contrary to the provisions
of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988 and of the Data Protection
Act, 1998.

Any views expressed are those of the sender and, unless specifically
stated, do not necessarily represent the view of Northumbria Police.

We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage sustained as a
result of software viruses.  It is your responsibility to carry out such
virus checking as is necessary.

If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by
e-mail at once and delete the message immediately.

For more information about Northumbria Police please visit our website -
[2]http://www.northumbria.police.uk

References

Visible links
1. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/dis...
2. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/