Arson investigations at public houses 2019-2024

Request

The number of arson investigations involving fires at public houses (pubs) for the following periods:

July 26 2019 – July 26 2020
July 26 2020 – July 26 2021
July 26 2021 – July 26 2022
July 26 2022 – July 26 2023
July 26 2023 – July 26 2024

Please include pubs that are both closed and open or unknown.

Response

I approached our Performance Review Unit for assistance with your request. An analyst within this unit has conducted a search of our Crime Management System – Connect which records complaints or allegations of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as ‘crimes’. All our systems are designed and used first and foremost for Policing Purposes and have limited search capability. They provided me with the enclosed spreadsheet in response and the following explanation regarding their search criteria:

Criteria Used - Incident Created Date is between 26/07/2019 and 25/07/2024, SYP & crime only filter, HO Sub Group Name is equal to / is in ARSON, Premises Type is equal to / is in Public House / Bar / Night Club

I have conducted a manual review of the 48 results for pub locations only, as requested. Of the 43 remaining results:

July 26 2019 – July 26 2020 = 9
July 26 2020 – July 26 2021 = 10
July 26 2021 – July 26 2022 = 9
July 26 2022 – July 26 2023 = 3
July 26 2023 – July 26 2024 = 12

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 police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording systems and information assets.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should be taken into account when those data are used

Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you may receive from other police forces.