FOI 8057-25 Tool theft data

Response

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Northamptonshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

• states that fact,
• specifies the exemption in question and
• states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies

The exemption applicable to the information requested is:

Section 12(2) – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit

The information you are requesting regarding internal reports, briefings, or summary data is not held by Northamptonshire Police in any reasonably retrievable form. Requests for information that is not held in an electronically searchable or retrievable format have to be tasked out to individuals/departments/business owners to try and locate the relevant data and in order for the force to be able to know who to task the request out to, and for them to know what it is that they are trying to retrieve, the force will need to know what they are looking for, who requested them, who produced them and when.

It is my assessment that the cost of providing you with the information requested would exceed the 'appropriate level' as set out in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (currently £450 for 'prescribed costs').

In view of the above, and in accordance with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please take this letter as a Refusal Notice.

You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the costs shown above and is then within the 'appropriate limit' shown above. (I cannot think of a means to refine the request in order to provide the information you are seeking) but if you would like some further information about how to proceed with your request then please contact:

[email protected]

Although excess cost removes the Force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relevant to your request, which was retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.

Crime searched for Theft Offences from ‘Burglary Community’ and ‘Theft from MV’ involving Tools recorded during Calendar Years 2024-01 and 2025-04

1 = All tool thefts
2 = Thefts from vehicles

The numerical data presented in this response is an un-audited snapshot of un-published data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that the data has been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting the data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when the data is used.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data, we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.