FOI 822/26

REQUEST

Please provide, for each of the last five calendar years (or financial years, if that is how the data is held), the number of individuals dealt with by your force for:

1. a) drink driving offences;

1. b) drug driving offences; and

1. c) offences involving both drink driving and drug driving arising from the same incident.

Please provide the figures in a table, broken down by year.

If your force records arrests or charges rather than offences detected, please provide the equivalent data held and state the basis on which the figures are compiled.

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.

A search has been completed using our crime and incident reporting system (Niche RMS) for arrests recorded between the 1^st January 2021 and 31^st December 2025 under the below Home Office Codes:

• 004/4/6/RA88043: Cause death by driving without due care and attention / reasonable consideration while unfit through drink - RTA 1988
• 004/4/6/RA88044: Cause death by driving without due care / consideration while unfit through drugs - RTA 1988
• 13/4/13: Cause death by driving without due care / consideration while over prescribed limit - specificed controlled drug.Road Traffic Act 1988 Sec 3A
• 803/1/N/DRIVE MPV WHILST UNF: Drive mpv whilst unfit drink/drugs
• 803/2/N/DRIVE M/V EXCESS ALC: Drive m/v excess alcohol
• 803/4/N/IN CHARGE MPV WHILST: In charge mpv whilst unfit drink/drugs
• 803/5/N/RT88008: In charge m/v with excess alcohol
• 803/13/N/DRUG ABOVE SPECIFIED: DRIVE A MOTOR VEHICLE WITH THE PROPORTION OF SPECIFIED CONTROLLED DRUG ABOVE SPECIFIED LEVEL Contrary to section 5A(1)(a) and (2) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

• This search yielded 9,391 results. The data you have requested is not routinely collated in the format that would easily answer your query, therefore, to accurately answer part C of your request each custody record would have to be manually reviewed to establish if the offence involved both drink and drug driving.

   

  We estimate it would take around 5 minutes to interrogate each record to retrieve the information you have requested.

   

  We therefore estimate it would take in excess of 782 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. If you were to remove part C we may be able to assist with the remainder of your request.