FOI 16545-25 - CCTV Suspect Identification
Request:
For the dates 1st June 2024 to 31st May 2025, in relation to Northamptonshire Police:
1. How many unidentified CCTV images of suspects for crimes were obtained for use in investigations?
2. How many were identified?
3. How many of these identified suspects were brought to justice (charged, cautioned etc)
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 only means of establishing information of the nature you are requesting would be by way of manual examination of each crime record. 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. To answer this request, we would first need to look through each crime record to establish whether CCTV was obtained. We would then need to review each record with CCTV to establish whether the CCTV was of an unidentified suspect. Where there was footage of an unidentified suspect, we would then need to review the record again to establish whether the suspect was later identified, and the outcome.
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.
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.
My assessment is that it would cost 60,000 (approximate number of crime records) x 2 minutes each (minimum) = 2000 hours at £25 per hour to establish whether CCTV had been obtained for each crime, which exceeds the 'appropriate limit' (currently £450 for 'prescribed costs').
Furthermore, we estimate that to review the CCTV to answer the questions in this request would take 10 minutes on average. If we found that 25% of crime records had CCTV, then it would take a further 15,000 (approximate number of records) x 10 (number of minutes to review) = 2500 hours, which also exceeds the appropriate limit.
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:
Due to the different methods of recording information across forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason, responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.