FOI 435392

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 435392

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 3^rd October 2025. Please find below the response to your request:

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 not a separate offence for ‘domestic energy theft’. Despite there being an offence for electricity theft (Home Office code 43), there is not a similar offence for gas or energy theft, meaning specific key word searches are required. Searches completed on: Theft in a dwelling other than from an automatic machine or meter, Abstracting electricity, Theft from an automatic machine or meter & Theft if not classified elsewhere has returned 493 unique offences, therefore, 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.

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.