FOI 8681-25 Average timescale for return of seized property
Request to Northamptonshire Police
Average timescale for return of seized property following notification of no longer needed for investigation
Response
Searches were conducted within Northamptonshire Police to locate the information and I can now confirm that Northamptonshire Police does not hold any information relative to your request. Freedom Of Information legislation concerns recorded information within an organisation, public bodies are not obliged to create/work out data/percentages/average timescales to facilitate such requests.
Once a request has been tasked to return the property to an owner, this should be actioned as soon as practicable. Tasks are checked daily, and if not, within 72 hours.
A letter is sent to the owner of the property and they are given 28 days in which to contact us. Once they have contacted us, an appointment is made at the earliest opportunity for them to collect the item. The timeframe of this is dependent on where the individual wants to collect the item from (only designated enquiry desks) and when the next delivery to that station will be. It would also depend on what date the individual wants to collect and if there are available appointment slots. This could potentially be anything from 2 days to 2 weeks.