FOI 366284
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 366284
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 16th October 2024. Please find below the response to your request:
Please may you provide me with: the latest information held on crime relating to tool theft in the West Mercia area between October 2023 and October 2024 (or the most recent 12-month period you have available).
Information should include,
1) Total number of instances of tool theft reported across the year =
2) Total value of tools theft reported across the year =
3) Average value of tools theft reported within the year timeframe =
4) Any additional breakdown of where the tool theft took place (for example, number of thefts from vehicles, number from home, number from a workplace, number from a construction site) =
Reply
Your request for information has been considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”), and I am not obliged to provide the information requested.
S.12(1) of the Act states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the “appropriate limit”. For police forces in England and Wales, the "appropriate limit" is £450 or 18 hours of work as set by the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
The information you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. There is no specific offence for “theft of tools”, we would have to search for relevant offence groups such as thefts from motor vehicles and all residential burglaries and then use a keyword search of the incident summary. There is a property field on our recording system, however this is not routinely completed and we would therefore have to complete a keyword search of the incident summaries to see how many mentioned tools in case the stolen property had been listed within.
There are over 351records. In order to ascertain whether the information you have requested is held would take in excess of 18 hours as each record would have to be checked individually in order to check if the reports related to tool theft, as well as determine if a value was recorded and where the offence took place.
In accordance with s.17(5) of the Act, this acts as a Refusal Notice.
Under s.16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request.
Unfortunately, due to the volume of records that would need to be reviewed I am unable to identify information that could be supplied within the fees limit.