FOI 19434-25 Nail salon raids
Request:
I am requesting the following aggregated statistical information for your police force area, covering the period 1 January 2019 - present.
For businesses described as "barbers", "hairdressers", "hair salons", "nail bars/salons", or "beauty salons" (keyword search acceptable), please provide:
- The total number of raids, operations, or enforcement actions involving these business types.
- The total number of arrests made.
- The total number of charges brought.
- The total value of cash or assets seized (if recorded in aggregated form).
- The total number of referrals made to HMRC, NCA, or Immigration Enforcement.
Clarification provided:
To clarify, by “raids, operations, or enforcement actions,” I am referring to any police-led activity involving suspected illegal activity within the listed business types, including but not limited to:
- Immigration offences (illegal working, human trafficking, or modern slavery)
- Licensing breaches or unregistered trading
- Money laundering, fraud, or proceeds of crime investigations
- Any multi-agency enforcement conducted with HMRC, NCA, or Immigration Enforcement
Response:
Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Northamptonshire Police, when refusing to provide information (because the information is exempt), to provide 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.
The exemption applicable to the information requested is:
Section 12(1) – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.
The information you are requesting is not held by Northamptonshire Police in any reasonably retrievable form. The information regarding police activity being classified as a “raid” is not recorded in a searchable field. The only means of establishing the information of the nature that you are requesting would be by way of manual examination of thousands of records. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer-run report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is usually required to retrieve that information. Keyword searches are problematic and in no way provide accurate results or figures.
By way of further explanation, not all raids, operations, or enforcement actions are police led. For example, licensing breaches or unregistered trading are normally led by Trading Standards. Police may also be conducting welfare checks where concerns have been raised.
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.
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'. (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:
Northamptonshire Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the production of statistical information for Freedom of Information responses.