FOI 978/25

Request

I would like to request the following information:

1. The number of reported incidents of tool theft recorded by your police force for each of the last five calendar years (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), and if available, year-to-date data for 2025.
2. For each year, please provide a breakdown of:
• The number of thefts from vehicles, residential properties, construction sites, or commercial premises (if this categorisation is available).
• The estimated total value of tools reported stolen each year (if recorded).

If some elements of this request exceed the cost/time limits of the FOI Act, I would be grateful if you could prioritise Part 1 (the number of incidents by year) and advise on how I may refine the remainder of the request to stay within acceptable limits.

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 particular request, the following exemption applies:

Section 12 – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.

A search has been conducted on our crime and incident recording system (Niche RMS) for all occurrences recorded under the occurrence type ‘Theft and Handling’ where ‘South Wales’ is selected as the owning agency between 1^st January 2025 and 24^th July 2025.

This search retrieved 15,533 results.

We estimate that it would take approximately 1 minute to individually interrogate each occurrence in order to establish their relevance to answer question 1.

We therefore estimate that it would take in excess of 258 hours to for 2025 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. due to the way in which the data is recorded, we can see no feasible way in which you could refine your request.