FOI 465-24 Wildlife Crime
Enquiry Reference: 465 - 24
I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request. Below is your request and our response.
- Total number of full-time police officers employed by your force, and the number of civilians within your police area
We have looked at the content of your request and must advise you that we consider the Freedom of information Act 2000 Exemption 21 (Information Accessible by other means) is engaged in relation to this request this is a class based and absolute exemption, requiring no prejudice or public interest to be considered.
If you visit the below website all the above information is available
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-open-data-tables
- a) Whether you have a unit dedicated to rural crime.
- b) If so, please outline how many members of staff are in this unit, and how much funding it receives as part of your overall budget.
- a) We do not have an FTE rural crime team; we have three neighbourhood police officers who deal with rural crimes as well as the neighbourhood duties.
- c) Do you have a policy to determine the apportionment of budget between Rural / Urban – if so please provide
- a) No information held.
- Please complete the following equipment table:
|
Your force’s current inventory of the following items: |
Current Inventory |
% of inventory allocated principally to Rural Crime |
|
High-power torches |
0 |
0 |
|
Microchip scanners |
0 |
0 |
|
Thermal spotters |
0 |
0 |
|
Dedicated Rural Drone surveillance kits |
0 |
0 |
|
Mobile ANPR Camera |
0 |
0 |
|
4x4 vehicles (Quad, SUV etc) |
0 |
0 |
- Number of reported cases in your police area over the past twelve months of the following crime categories (if you do not categorise in the same way please share details of the most appropriate data subset):
Flytipping – not known
Sheep rustling – no reports
Hare coursing – 25 reported
Poaching – 21 incidents (fish, deer etc)
Machinery / GPS theft – 4 machinery and 2 GPS
Livestock worrying – 3
Heritage Crime - 2
Raptor Persecution – not known
Unauthorised Encampments – not known
- a) The above answers are from the Neighbourhood officer who also deals in rural crime. The analysts however would need a home office offence code or actual offence from the below list to search for crimes.
Counting rules notifiable offences and notifiable reported incidents list 2024/25
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/counting-rules-for-recorded-crime
- What training is available to staff on rural crime – please complete the following table
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Is training available to call handlers and police staff on the following crime categories |
If available -how often is the training updated |
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Flytipping |
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Sheep rustling |
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Hare coursing |
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Poaching |
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Machinery / GPS theft |
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Livestock worrying |
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Heritage Crime |
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Raptor Persecution |
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|
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Unauthorised Encampments |
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- a) Power point presentations to all officers which touches on all the above topics except unauthorised encampments. The aim is to deliver a yearly refresher in person.
- Number of full-time police officers employed exclusively to tackle crime within your police area, who have never been, and will never be, re-deployed to support urban issues as needed. If the answer is zero, I will assume you have no regulations or policies in place to stop force members being drawn into urban issues.
- a) No information held.
- A) Is there a universal tag for the crimes listed in question 4, and if so; B) is your force able to access data sets to compare these crimes with other police areas.
- a) See above response.
- For 999 calls where a police officer(s) were deployed from your force, what was the average time from the call being received in your control room, to the officer(s) reaching their deployment destination for calls graded “Immediate” in the past year –
- a) in the whole force area and b) specifically within rural areas within your force parameter.
- a) For 12 months to end of April, the mean response time for emergency incidents was 12.7 minutes and median of 9.4 minutes, whilst in rural areas the mean was 18.0 minutes and median of 14.4 minutes.
- A) In the last year how many 999 calls relating to the categories in Question 4; a) did and b) did not receive an in-person response. B) How many 999 calls of all types in total A) did and B) did not receive and in person response
- a) No information held.
8.) In the last year, in relation to Section 60C-E of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 which provides a criminal offence for “residing on land without consent in or with a vehicle”:
a.) how many arrests were made by your force?
b.) how many times have the associated seizure and forfeiture powers been used?
c.) In addition how many times has your force exercised powers under:
d.) s61 to remove trespassers with a common purpose of residing on land;
e.) or s62A to direct trespassers to an alternative site?
- a) We record/hold data using the Home Office offence codes and we cannot find an code for the above. The link is below if you can provide what offence you require the information for we will endeavour to provide this.
Counting rules notifiable offences and notifiable reported incidents list 2024/25
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/counting-rules-for-recorded-crime
The Cleveland Police response to your request is unique and it should be noted that Police Forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures to capture and record data therefore responses from Cleveland Police should not be used as a comparison with any other force response you receive.
If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request, you have the right to request an independent internal review of your case under our review procedure. The Freedom of Information Code of Practice (see below link) states that a request for internal review should be made within 20 working days of the date on this response or 40 working days if extenuating circumstances to account for the delay can be evidenced. Public authorities are not obliged to accept internal reviews after this date.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-code-of-practice
Yours sincerely
Information Rights Decision Maker