FOI 757/25

REQUEST

Original request 733/25

Do you hold information on persons arrested for theft of tools who were employed in the industry?

From the year 2000 onwards.

New request 757/25

I am looking for a sentence something like; "during 2024 and 2025, 19 people were arrested for thefts of tools. 3 of them were employed in the construction industry, or had links to it."

RESPONSE

We conducted a search on our crime and incident recording system (Niche RMS) for all arrests recorded from 2024 to May 2025 where the arrested persons occupation type was recorded as ‘construction industry’.

The arrests were filtered down to the following arrest description groups:

• Aggravated burglary - dwelling (recordable)
• Attempt burglary dwelling with intent to steal (recordable)
• Attempt burglary other than dwelling with intent to steal (recordable)
• Attempt theft from the person of another (recordable)
• Burglary dwelling - with intent to cause damage (recordable)
• Burglary dwelling - with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm (recordable)
• Burglary dwelling - with intent to steal (recordable)
• Burglary dwelling and theft - no violence (recordable)
• Burglary other than dwelling - theft (recordable)
• Burglary other than dwelling with intent to steal (recordable)
• Robbery (recordable)
• Theft - other - including theft by finding (recordable)
• Theft by employee (recordable)
• Theft from a motor vehicle (recordable)
• Theft from a shop (recordable)
• Theft from the person of another (recordable)
• Theft in dwelling other than an automatic machine or meter (recordable)

Each result was manually interrogated to establish if they related to ‘theft of tools’.

There were 4 arrests made in relation to tool theft where the arrested persons occupation was recorded as ‘construction industry’ during the requested time frame.

Please note we do not routinely record whether a theft offence specifically relates to tools and there is no offence category for ‘theft of tools’ in our systems. In order to identify the number of arrests for theft of tools would require manual interrogation of all theft offences to establish if they are relevant. Therefore we are unable to provide a figure for the number of arrests for tool thefts as this will always exceed the appropriate cost limit set our under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act.

As you have requested information relating to individuals employed in the construction industry, I was able to filter theft arrests where the occupation type was ‘construction industry’. This resulted in a smaller number of results which I could then manually review within the 18-hour limit stipulated by the regulations.

Please also note the results retrieved are dependent on how the information has been entered onto the system. Occupation information is not consistently recorded or may not be disclosed by individuals as it is not a mandatory field within our recording systems. As such, the information provided should not be considered statistically accurate and/or definitive and therefore, care should be taken when using this data for any further statistical, analytical or evaluative purposes.