FOI T027/25 - Clare's Law

I would like to file an FOI request for the following data, pertaining to the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (Clare's Law), for each annual period from 2014* - 2024 inclusive.  Within each period that follows, please could you provide:

1. How many DVDS requests were received within each period?

2. How many of those requests within each period were fulfilled?

3. How many of those requests within each period were rejected?

4. And, if retrievable, reason(s) for rejection?

The periods in question are from 01 January to 31 December (inclusive) within each year 2014 - 2024 (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024).

For example, in 2014, between 01 Jan - 31 Dec inclusive, X DVDS requests were received, X were fulfilled, X were rejected. Of those rejected, X number were rejected owing to X reason, and X were rejected owed to X reason.

*Or as the scheme was implemented – please specific.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Safeguarding and Corporate Development Departments of Northumbria Police.  We can confirm that the information you have requested is held in part by Northumbria Police.

We are able to disclose the located information to you as follows, however the following caveats should be noted:

• We do not record the data by the categories outlined in your request (fulfilled and rejected).  In every request we attempt to speak to the applicant/person at risk to establish if they are eligible for the scheme and regardless if eligible or not they get suitable safety advice.  Therefore, if by ‘fulfilled’ you mean we speak to the applicant/person at risk we would suggest close to 100% are fulfilled and the numbers required are as per the numbers in total applications below.  If ‘fulfilled’ means they are eligible for the scheme and progress to potential disclosure, then the numbers required are at Eligible applications below.  However, if ‘fulfilled’ means we gave a disclosure then the numbers are in ‘disclosures’ below.
• If an applicant is eligible, we will consider making a disclosure, however there are many eligible applications where there is nothing to disclose, hence the disclosure numbers are lower than the eligible number.  For example, we do not consider it a disclosure if we tell someone there is nothing to disclose.
• Please note that we separate the two elements in DVDS into Right to Know (RTK) and Right to Ask (RTA). 
• 2024 data covers the period from January to October only.

1-3.  Please see the table below for the data which is currently held:

4. This information is not retrievable within the time limitations afforded by the act, as we would be required to manually review each application that was not eligible and those where a disclosure was not made to ascertain a reason.  However, rather than refuse your request as a whole we have provided a generic response to this point as you indicated ‘if retrievable’.  Therefore we can advise that if an applicant is eligible, we will consider making a disclosure, however there are many eligible applications where there is nothing to disclose, hence the disclosure numbers are lower than the eligible number.  For example, we do not consider it a disclosure if we tell someone there is nothing to disclose.