FOI 891/25

Request

Under the Freedom of Information Act, we kindly request the following information from your service:

1. How many incidents involving vandalism or criminal damage targeting public EV charge points were recorded by your force for each of the following years:

• 2022
• 2023
• 2024
• 2025 (to date)

2. How many incidents involving theft targeting public EV charge points were recorded by your force for each of the following years:

• 2022
• 2023
• 2024
• 2025 (to date)

3. For the incidents identified in questions 1 and 2, how many led to:

• Investigations being opened
• Arrests being made
• Charges or prosecutions

4. What was the total amount of fines issued in relation to these offences – please break down for the years:

• 2022
• 2023
• 2024
• 2025 (to date)

Response

Your request for information has now been considered and I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.       

In relation to your request, the following exemption applies:

Section 12 – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.

Unfortunately, the data you have requested is not routinely collated in the format that would easily answer your query. A search has been conducted on our crime and incident recording system (Niche RMS) for all occurrences recorded under the offence type ‘criminal damage’ and ‘theft and handling’ during the requested time frame.  

This search retrieved 89,881 results.

We estimate that it would take approximately two minutes to interrogate each occurrence to identify whether it is a duplicate or if it is related to EV charging points.

We therefore estimate it would take in excess of 2,996 hours. 

It is estimated that the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the "appropriate level" as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.

In the case of the police service, the appropriate limit is £450 which has been calculated to equate to a total of 18 hours of work.

If any part of the request exceeds the fees limit then Section 12 applies to the whole request.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a refusal notice.

Excess cost removes the forces obligation under the Freedom of Information Act, however under Section 16 – Duty to provide advice and assistance, an authority is required to offer an applicant the opportunity to redefine their request within the cost limit. Unfortunately, due to the way in which data is recorded, we can see no feasible way in which you could refine your request.