FOI 908/26

REQUEST

For the period 1 January 2018 to 1 June 2026:

1. The total number of arrests recorded by your force in connection with football matches or football-related events.

2. Of these, how many involved individuals were aged under 18 at the time of arrest. Where available, please provide an annual (calendar year) breakdown of the under-18 arrests.

3. If the type of offence is included in your data (e.g. public order, violence, possession of pyrotechnics), please also include this information.

For the purposes of this request, 'football-related' refers to arrests recorded by the force as connected to a football match, football event, football policing operation, football banning order matter, or otherwise classified as football-related within police records.

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.

The data you have requested is not routinely collated in the format that would easily answer your query, therefore, to accurately answer questions 1, 2 and 3 we would have to manually review all arrests made between the 1^st January 2019 when our data begins, and the 31^st May 2026 to establish if they were in relation to football matches or football related events. There have been 261,317 arrests during this time frame.

Whilst I cannot quantify exactly how long this would take it would most certainly exceed the 18 hours stipulated by the regulations

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.  

You may however find the link below of some assistance in relation to your request.

Football-related arrests and banning orders statistics - GOV.UK