FOI 448080

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 17th December 2025.  Please find below the response to your request: 448080

 

REQUEST 1:

I am requesting the following information from West Mercia Police.

For each of the past five calendar years (, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 2025), please provide:

1. The total number of occasions on which police officers attended, or were dispatched to, schools within the force area following a call for service or incident report.

2. Where recorded and available within the cost limit, a breakdown of these figures by:

    * Year

    * Type of school (for example: primary, secondary, special schools, pupil referral units) For the purposes of this request, "schools" should be taken to mean state-funded and independent primary and secondary schools, including academies and free schools.

I am seeking aggregated statistical information only. I do not request any personal data, identifying details, or information about individual incidents.

 

REQUEST 2:

 

I am requesting the following information from West Mercia Police.

For each of the past five calendar years (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025), please provide:

1. The number of police officers or police staff deployed by the force with a primary or dedicated role relating to school safety, schools liaison, or policing in schools.

2. Where recorded and available within the cost limit, please provide:

    * The job title(s) used for these roles (for example, School Liaison Officer, Safer Schools Officer, School Safety Officer, Youth Engagement Officer)

    * Whether these roles were full-time or part-time

    * Whether the posts were officer roles, police staff roles, or a mixture of both If the force does not deploy dedicated school-based officers or staff, please state this explicitly.

I am seeking aggregated workforce information only and do not request any personal data.

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 are over 1573 records.  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 accordance with s.17(5) of the Act, this acts as a Refusal Notice.

However, In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide the information requested for question 1 as this was retrieved during our initial research. This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests

Request 1

There is no formal identifier of education addresses within our command and control system and therefore a search has been carried out on the following criteria

 

 

 

Most PCSO’s will regularly visit and do keep in touch days with their neighbourhood schools.