FOI 515-24 Traffic Collision
Enquiry Reference: 515 - 24
I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request. Below is your request and our response.
- How many qualified Forensic Collision Investigators have been held by your force annually from 2009 to the present? Please can the data be provided annually.
2021 – 3
2022 – 2
2023 – 2
2024 – 2
- How many live crash scenes were attended by your force annually from 2009 to the present, and of these, how many were attended by a Forensic Collision Investigator? Please can the data be provided annually.
See below exemption.
- How many serious injury road traffic collision cases were investigated by FCI’s annually from 2009 to the present? Please can the data be broken down annually.
2023 – 27
2022 – 26
2021 – 22
2020 – 18
2019 – 65
2018 – 69
2017 – 68
2016 – 72
- How many fatal road traffic collision cases were investigated by FCIs annually from 2009 to the present? Please can the data be broken down annually.
2023 – 9
2022 – 14
2021 – 14
2020 – 12
2019 – 16
2018 – 15
2017 – 7
2016 – 8
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1 (1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Sec 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held. Where exemptions are relied upon s17 of FOIA requires that we provide the applicant with a notice which: a) states that fact b) specifies the exemption(s) in question and c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
Having made enquiries within the Force for question two our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record. Where relevant information is held deeper in a record a manual assessment is usually required to retrieve that information. In this instance for question 2 it is not recorded at the case management system level therefore to determine such detail would require a manual search through all the records and for 2023 we had in excess of 600 injury road traffic incidents alone and that this would take in excess of the appropriate time stipulated by the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer on the 18th Of October 2004, that is, eighteen hours. This falls under the exemption of 'Compliance exceeding the appropriate limit' covered by Section 12 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and as such this work could not be undertaken.
Therefore, please treat this as a refusal notice under S17 of the Freedom of information Act.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act we have a duty to provide advice and assistance however on this occasion we cannot offer any suggestion on how you could refine this request for question two.
However as a gesture of goodwill outside of the act we have provided the information collated before it was realised that this would take in excess of the time specified.
Please note that all statistical data supplied in relation to Freedom of Information requests is a snapshot of data held at the time the request was received by the Freedom of Information office and is subject to constant change/updates.
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