FOI 853/25

REQUEST

Please provide the number of reported dog thefts in your jurisdiction for each of the past three full calendar years (2022, 2023, and 2024), as well as for 2025 to date.

The data should be broken down by month and year, allowing us to understand any annual and seasonal trends.

If available, I would also like a geographic breakdown of these reported thefts using the most detailed level possible (such as postcode, neighbourhood, or police ward), with the location format clearly stated.

Please also include, if recorded:

A breakdown by breed of the dogs reported stolen during the same period.

The location type where the theft occurred (e.g., at home, in a local park, from a vehicle, etc.).

The time of day when the incidents occurred (morning, afternoon, evening, overnight, or more specific times if available).

The number of dogs reported stolen that were later found, rescued, or reclaimed.

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 request. A search has therefore been conducted on our crime and incident recording system (Niche RMS) where ‘Theft and Handling’ has been selected as the occurrence type and where ‘South Wales’ has been selected as the owning agency between 01/04/2022 – 30/06/2025.

This search retrieved 27,464 results for one calendar year alone.

We estimate that it will take approximately four to five minutes to individually interrogate each occurrence in order to establish if they relate to a dog theft crime, the breed of the dog, the location of the theft, the time of day and the outcome.

We therefore estimate it would take in excess of 2059 hours to retrieve the data for one year alone.

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. Keyword searches are not routinely carried out by South Wales Police as the results they retrieve are not reliable. These searches will only bring back results where the chosen keyword is contained within the occurrence summary or Modus Operandi (MO). These are limited free text fields and do not contain all information in relation to an investigation. However, if the applicant specifically asks for keyword searches to be conducted and provides the keywords for us to search on, we may be able to assist.