FOI 684/25

REQUEST

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request the following information, please:

1. The total number of cases of livestock theft reported in the calendar years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024. 
2. The total number of livestock theft reported between 01.01.25 - 15.05.25
3. Of the above cases, please could you break it down by theft of sheep, cows, pigs, horses, chicken, donkey, goats. If this is not possible, alternatively could you provide the number of these theft cases where a keyword search of any of the key words 'sheep, cows, pigs, horses, chicken, donkey, goats' is included.

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 conducted a search on our crime and incident recording system (Niche RMS) under the occurrence type ‘Theft and handling’ for the time frames specified that have the keywords *sheep*, *cows*, *pigs*, *horses*, *chicken*, *donkey* or *goats* in the summary This search retrieved a total of 746 results.

We estimate it will take a minimum of 2 minutes to interrogate each occurrence to establish if they relate to the theft of livestock.

We therefore estimate it would take in excess of 24 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. Unfortunately, due to the way in which data is recorded, we can see no feasible way in which you could refine your request.