FOI 1079/26
REQUEST
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following information for each calendar year from 2022 to 2025, inclusive.
For theft-related offences recorded by your force, including burglary and robbery, please provide:
- The number of offences involving theft of watches, jewellery, handbags or artwork, broken down by item category
- A breakdown by postcode area. If unavailable, please provide a breakdown by local authority or borough
- The number of stolen items subsequently recovered in each category, where recorded
- The number of these offences in which stolen property was recovered, where recorded
- The total estimated value of the stolen property, where recorded
RESPONSE
Your request for information has now been considered, and I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Wales Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:
(a) states that fact,
(b) specifies the exemption in question and
(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
In relation to your request, the following exemption applies:
Section 12(1) – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.
Due to inconsistencies across the force in relation to recording stolen property. A search has been completed using our crime and incident recording system (NICHE RMS) for all occurrences recorded as ONS category ‘Robbery’ between 1st January 2026 and 25th August 2026. This search retrieved 3475 occurrences.
We estimate that it would take between 7-8 minutes to interrogate each occurrence to determine whether any jewellery, artwork, watches or handbags were stolen, the number of stolen items that were subsequently recovered and the value of those items.
We therefore estimate that it would take over 18 hours to retrieve the information.
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 the data is recorded, we can see no feasible way in which you could refine your request.