FOI 463548

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 463548

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 16^th March 2026. Please find below the response to your request:

, I would like to kindly request the following information:

1) The total number of incident responses which came through the 999 BSL service that resulted in the attendance / dispatch of police officers from your force in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025

• Please provide a separate figure for each individual calendar year - e.g. 100 in 2022, 37 in 2023, etc

2) The total number of incident responses which came through the 999 BSL service that resulted in the attendance / dispatch of police officers from your force specifically where a BSL interpreter was also used / employed / contracted to assist at the scene of the emergency (AFTER the dispatch) (either in-person or virtually e.g. computers on wheels, facetime, etc) in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025

• Again, please provide a separate figure for each individual calendar year

If data is not available for part two, please instead indicate whether the police force routinely contracts / uses a BSL interpreter to assist with any police officer dispatches resulting from an incident report through the 999 BSL service (aka, if there is any provision for BSL interpretation in emergency situations after the initial 999 BSL video relay service has concluded and officers are dispatched).

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 as we are not able to differentiate whether a 999 call is BSL or not. 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 to ascertain if each incident recorded could be identified as having come through the BSL service or not.

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 below 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.

A search has been completed for incidents where the call source is 999 and the incident description refers to BSL:

I can also advise that West Mercia Police use a Language Services provider which includes BSL. If an officer requires BSL support, they would request this information themselves directly with the supplier.