Northumbria Police

FAQ Details

Anti-Social Behaviour Orders - 180/10

Dated: 07 Jun 2011

Date of request: 18/03/2010

Date of response: 15/04/2010

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')(FOIA)

Thank you for your email dated 18 March 2010 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked: 

I would be grateful if, under the Freedom of Information Act, you could answer the following questions for the period from the 1/01/2009 to the 31/12/2009.

1. How many applications for Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) has the force made to a local magistrates court.

2. In the case of each application can you please provide the age of the person who was to be subject to the order and a description of the anti-social behaviour which was the subject of concern.

3. In each case please state whether the application was successful, in those cases where the application was successful please outline the terms and conditions attached to the particular ASBO?

In response:

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention. 

1. We have not been able to provide fully the information you have requested.  This is due to the information requested not being held centrally for the force.  Therefore, each Area Command, of which we have 6, has had to be consulted individually for the information that they hold.

   During the period specified a total of 7 ASBO applications have been made by 3 Area Commands.

   The remaining Area Commands have not been able to supply this information as it is not held in an easily retrievable format.  To provide this information would entail a manual search of all crime related cases with a charge.  We have estimated that to provide this information would take over 18 hours, therefore Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act would apply.  This section does not oblige a public authority to  comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00.

   You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Act for those parts of your request.

   Although excess cost removes Northumbria Police's obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  As a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied the information retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded.  I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remaining parts of your request.

2. A total of 18 ASBO applications have been successful.  Please see the document attached below which contains the details that could be provided.

3. Please see our response to 2 above.

The ASBO data provided pertains to information collected by Northumbria Police force area only.  It does not contain the full range of statistical information collected by the Home Office and therefore differs from published Home Office data.  Home Office ASBO data is based on information provided by the courts.  For further information on Home Office ASBO data please refer to the following website:-
http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police.  Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation.  In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

How to complain

If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our complaints procedure which can be found at: http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/foicomprights.asp

If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.

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