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Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.025900
I note you seek access to the following information:
1. Please could you provide me with the number of reports of dog attacks (i.e. owner or person in charge allowing dog to be dangerously out of control in any place in England and Wales (whether or not in a public place) injuring any person or assistance dog).
2. Please can you provide the number of reported incidents in January to July 2021 and the number in January to July 2022.
3. Please can you provide a breakdown of the figure for each time period by recorded outcomes (e.g. number of Charge/Summons, Community Resolution etc).
4. Where possible, for each incident can you provide information about the age of the victim in the report (in 10 year age groups), the breed of dog involved, whether a seizure of the dog was made (under the Dangerous Dogs Act), and whether, subsequently, the dog was destroyed.
5. Can you also include January to July 2020.”
I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information. Some data has been withheld as it is exempt from disclosure and therefore this response serves as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) by virtue of the following exemptions:
Section 40(2)(a)(b)(3)(a)(i)(ii)(b) – Personal Information
Section 30(1)(a)(b)(c)(2)(a) – Investigations and proceedings conducted by public authorities
Reason for decision
I have made the decision to disclose the number of cases located, as requested at your questions 1, 2 and 5.
I have also provided a separate table disclosing the ages of victims in 10 year age groups, and by year, as requested at your question 4.
With further reference to your question 2, where you ask us to provide a breakdown of the figure for each time period by recorded outcomes (e.g. number of Charge/Summons, Community Resolution etc). Please be advised that due to extremely low data I am unable to provide a full breakdown for all outcomes as this would be highly likely to identify specific investigations, identify individuals, and release sensitive personal information in relation to those individuals, into the public domain. I have therefore instead combined some outcomes and Section 40(2)(3) of the Act, and Section 30(1)(a)(b)(c)(2)(a), which provide exemptions for personal information and investigations, have been applied to refuse disclosure.
Section 40(2)(3) is an absolute and class based exemption if to release the information would breach the third party’s data protection rights. In this case to release this personal information would not constitute fair processing of the data. As this exemption is class based I am not required to identify the harm in disclosure and in this instance I believe that the right to privacy outweighs any public interest in release.
Section 40(2)(a)(b)(3(a)(i)(ii)(b) – Personal Information - Section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 confirms that information which relates to an identified or identifiable living individual is Personal Data. The Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption for Personal Data and this is known as the section 40 exemption.
The information you have requested is considered by the MPS to be personal to any individuals concerned. Where the request is seeking access to third party personal data the section 40(2) exemption may be engaged.
In order to apply the Section 40(2) exemption the disclosure of the requested information must satisfy either the first, second or third conditions as defined by subsections 3(A), 3(B) and 4(A) of the Data Protection Act 2018.
The first condition ensures that the exemption would apply in circumstances where the disclosure of the information would breach any of the Data Protection Act 2018 principles.
There are six Data Protection principles set out in the 2018 act and these can be found at section 34. In this instance I have decided that the disclosure of the Personal Data would be incompatible with the first Data Protection principle which states that the processing (in this case the disclosure) of the data must be both lawful and fair.
Section 30(1)(a)(b)(c)(2)(a) - Investigations and proceedings conducted by public authorities - provides an exemption from the duty to disclose information that a public authority has held at any time for certain investigations or proceedings. As long as the other requirements of the exemption are satisfied, the exemption will apply to information even if it was not originally obtained or generated for one of those purposes and it will continue to protect information even if it is no longer being used for the specified investigation or proceeding. It is only necessary for the information to have been held at some point for those purposes. The exemption applies to information rather than documents so it is possible that information contained in a document created after the conclusion of an investigation or set of proceedings could still attract the exemption…’
I can advise you that in this specific case section 30 has been engaged as the information in question relates to investigations, which the MPS had a duty to conduct.
Where this exemption is engaged, the public interest must favour the maintenance of the exemption over disclosure of the information. Where the public interest favours disclosure, the information in question should be disclosed despite the exemption being engaged. As a class based exemption, this means it is not necessary to identify the harm that may occur as a result of disclosure in order to engage the exemption.
However, this has to be balanced against the harm that would be caused by how members of the public perceived how the MPS would treat any information which formed part of an investigation.
During the course of a police investigation, enquires are made to secure evidence. These enquires are made for the duration of the case and are based upon proven methods as well as the judgement and experience of the officer(s) in charge of the investigation. The MPS is reliant upon these techniques to conduct its investigations and the public release of such information could prejudice the ability of the MPS to conduct further, similar investigations. It is not in the public interest to disclose any further information that may compromise the MPS's ability to complete future investigations.
Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing operations and providing assurance that the police service is appropriately and effectively engaging with such policing matters, there is a very strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of police investigations and operations.
The MPS is satisfied that the case is not made out for the release of any further information and that section 30(1)(2) is appropriately engaged.
Having considered the arguments for and against, the public interest test favours withholding the requested information. The MPS will not disclose information that could reveal personal information or compromise investigations.
Finally, with further reference to your question 4, please be advised that it is not possible to locate the additional information you are seeking (the breed of dog involved, whether a seizure of the dog was made, and whether the dog was destroyed) within the appropriate cost limit under the Act. To locate retrieve and extract this information it would be necessary for a member of staff to review individual records. This work would take a minimum of 5 minutes per record and to demonstrate the time it would take in total I would like to refer you to the data provided which shows that over 3500 records have been located relevant to your request and each would need to be reviewed. Even were we to use an extremely conservative estimate of this work taking only 5 minutes per record it would nonetheless take a single member of staff over 300 hours to complete this work and would far exceed the appropriate cost limit under the Act. This would normally lead to your entire request being refused under Section 12(1) of the Act, but as you have included a caveat that we should only disclose this information ‘if possible’, I have made the decision to instead disclose the information we have located, to you.
Disclosure
Please note: your questions have been numbered to ensure clarity in our response.
Please see the attached spreadsheet for data that has been located and assessed as suitable for disclosure. As outlined previously, some outcomes have been combined due to low figures.
Please ensure that the data provided is read in conjunction with the notes page of the attached spreadsheet to ensure correct interpretation of the data provided.