XL bully dog attacks
Your request details
1, Can you please tell me how many dog attacks involving XL Bullies have been recorded by SouthYorkshire Police since the ban, prohibiting members of the public from owning dogs of that breedwithout a valid Certificate of Exemption, came in on February 1, 2024? If possible, can you please break this down by month going from February 1, 2024, through to October 1, 2025. However, if it is not possible to provide a monthly breakdown within the time allotted for each FOI,could you please instead provide a breakdown for 2024 and 2025.
2, Can you please tell me how many people have been charged in connection with their ownershipof XL Bullies since the ban, prohibiting members of the public from owning dogs of that breedwithout a valid Certificate of Exemption, came in on February 1, 2024? If possible, can you please break this down by month going from February 1, 2024, through to October 1, 2025. However, if it is not possible to provide a monthly breakdown within the time allotted for each FOI, could you please instead provide a breakdown for 2024 and 2025.
3, Can you please tell me how many XL Bullies have been destroyed since the ban, prohibitingmembers of the public from owning dogs of that breed without a valid Certificate of Exemption,came in on February 1, 2024? If possible, can you please break this down by month going from February 1, 2024, through to October 1, 2025. However, if it is not possible to provide a monthly breakdown within the time allotted for each FOI,could you please instead provide a breakdown for 2024 and 2025.
4, Can you please tell me how dogs of other breeds have been destroyed since the ban, prohibitingmembers of the public from owning dogs of that breed without a valid Certificate of Exemption,came in on February 1, 2024? If possible, can you please break this down by month going from February 1, 2024, through toOctober 1, 2025. However, if it is not possible to provide a monthly breakdown within the time allotted for each FOI,could you please instead provide a breakdown for 2024 and 2025.
Response
Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Yorkshire Police, when refusing toprovide such information (because the information is exempt), to provide you the applicant with a notice which:
a. states that fact,
b. specifies the exemption in question and
c. states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
The following exemption(s) apply to the disclosure of the information:
Exemption applied - Section 12(1) Where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
We hold information that falls under the scope of your request. However, locating/retrieving/extractingthe information would exceed the cost limit set out by section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000(FOIA).
Reasons for applying exemption 12(1)
I approached the Performance Review Unit. The initial search of this system returned over 1800 Incidentreports regarding how many people have been charged in connection with ownership of an XLBully. The data you are requesting is not recorded in an easily retrievable format and to provide the level ofdata you require would require a manual review of all the records. At a conservative 5 mins per incidentthis process would take over 150hrs.
In essence, we would have to review and manually check all relevant incidents to extract the level of detailof the cases that met the criteria of your request; this process would take much longer than 18 hours' work.The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 providethat the cost limit for non-central government public authorities is £450. This must be calculated at the rateof £25 per hour, providing an effective time limit of 18 hours.
Guidance from the Information Commissioner to public authorities is that where one part of a request isreasonably estimated to exceed the appropriate limit then the authority is not obliged to consider or complywith the remainder of the request up to the point at which the appropriate limit has been reached. Pleasenote point 30 of the below link:https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf
Section 16: Providing advice and assistance
Under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, my duty to provide advice and assistance toanyone making a request for information.
Although excess cost removes the force's obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gestureof goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realisedthat 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 remainder ofyour request neither does it bind South Yorkshire Police to any commitment that it will release information in such a manner in the future.
I approached our Performance Review Unit for assistance with Question 2, they provided me the following:
Criteria used:SYP & crime only filter, Incident Created Date is between 01/02/2024 and 30/09/2025, HO Classificationis equal to 008/21, 111/25, 111/05
The search has resulted in 1813 Investigations.
I approached our Dangerous Dogs Spoc for further assistance with your request, they provided me with thefollowing:
Question 1
84
Question 3
362
Question 4
488
Please note, every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that data has been extracted from data sources used by this force for policepurposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherentin any large-scale recording systems and information assets.The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but youshould be aware that the collation of figures/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should betaken into account when those data sets are used. Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasonsthis response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you mayreceive from other police forces