FOI 1008/25

Request

1. Between 1 April 2024 and 1 July 2025, how many RASSO investigations the force undertook.

2. Of these, how many investigations included the request of the victim's counselling records?

3. Of these, how many led to court orders to obtain said therapist records?

4. And how many cases were dropped after the therapist refused to hand over the records?

5. During the same timeframe, has the force been investigated by ICO for a data breach, regarding the request of a victim's counselling records?

6. If so, how many times?

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.

We consulted with our Public Protection & Safeguarding unit who have advised the information requested for questions 2-4 is not recorded in an easily retrievable format. During the requested period there were more than 4,332 RASSO investigations undertaken by South Wales Police.

We estimate it would take approximately 4-5 minutes to manually interrogate each investigation to retrieve the information requested for questions 2, 3 & 4 of your request.

We therefore estimate it would take in excess of 324 hours to comply with your request.

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 questions 2-4 we may be able to assist you with your request.