FOI 420/25 Pursuit-Related Fatalities and documents
Enquiry Reference: 420-25
I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request, firstly please accept my sincere apologies for the length of time it has taken to respond to your request.
Below is your request and our response.
This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Please share the following information regarding police pursuits:
Q1. How many pursuit-related fatalities occurred between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2024? Please share both the total number of fatalities in the 10-year period and the number of fatalities per calendar year.
Q2. How many pursuit-related injuries occurred between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2024? Please share both the total number of injuries in the 10-year period and the number of injuries per calendar year.
Q3. Please share all completed Pursuit Management Debrief Return documents for incidents which took place between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2024.
Please note, I am requesting all Pursuit Management Debrief Return documents in a 10-year period, instead of Pursuit Management Debrief Return documents only related to a pursuit.
By "Pursuit Management Debrief Return documents" I am referring to the document completed after a pursuit to record and analyse the pursuit. Surrey and Sussex Police Forces call these documents "Pursuit Management Debrief Return forms" (as per Pursuit Policy 6.2), but your force may use another term.
I understand these may be redacted for personal information but I ask that you redact only exempted information and justify the use of those exemptions. I also kindly remind you that the time taken for redactions does not usually contribute towards the cost cap under FOI.
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 extensive enquiries within the Force although we utilise a computerised system for the management of collisions and associated matters and whilst the system has a range of search facilities it cannot, via a simple computer search, extract the information as requested for questions 1 and 2. The information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran 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 required to retrieve that information.
From speaking to the relevant departments there are no ‘stats’ fields for ‘involving pursuits’ and based on the parameters of questions 1 and 2 there over 400 pursuits and it would take around 3 -5 minutes per record to establish the requested information.
The cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond and 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(1) 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 the sake of completeness, I should also point out that as the whole request exceeds the fees limit, we are not obliged to indicate further where either exemptions or a “neither confirm nor deny” response may have been relevant to any part of your request.
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