FOI/2120 Missing Person Reports

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

Thank you for your email received on the 23 December 2025 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 at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

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

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development and Prevention 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, with the below caveats to be noted:

• In relation to point 1, two tables are provided as an individual may have been reported missing on more than one occasion in the same year. One table shows the number of individuals reported missing where each person is only counted once in each year; and the other table shows the number of times people have been reported missing, including each occasion they went missing in each year. The data provided at point 2 relates to all missing person reports.

• In relation to point 3, searches were made on all incidents using the keywords "dementia" and "Alzheimers".  As with any keyword search, the search will only return exact matches within the incident comments.  This does not account for any other differences in terminology and/or spelling used.  Also, if the keyword is not used within the incident comments, the incident will not be identified.  The search is limited to the first 800 characters of the incident comments - any information beyond that cannot be searched.

You asked:

I would be grateful if you could provide the following information relating to missing person reports recorded by your force over the last five complete calendar years (or financial years, if this is how the data is held):

1. The total number of individuals reported missing in each year.

The following table shows the number of individuals reported missing per year (counting each person once regardless of how many times they were reported missing in each year):
 

The following table shows the number of individuals reported missing per year where the same individual may be reported missing on repeated occasions:
 

2. Of those reported missing, how many individuals were located or traced within 24 hours of being reported missing.
 

3. The number of reported missing persons who were recorded as having:
Dementia
Alzheimer’s disease
(or other recorded cognitive impairments, if grouped together).

The following data was identified from a keyword search (see caveat above):
 

4. Any recorded data or estimates held by your force regarding:
a. The average number of officer and/or staff hours spent per missing person investigation,
b. Or, if individual averages are not recorded, the total officer/staff hours attributed to missing person investigations per year.

No information held.