Average response time for firearms units 2019-23
Request
Please provide me with answers to the following query.
1 (a) For 12 months to the end of April 2024, please outline your force's average response time for a firearms unit / armed response unit, where an emergency call demands an armed police response.
- Please break this data / timings down by each post code area your force serves, eg. SW1, L27, EH11 ...
(b) Additionally, please provide this information for 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23.
(c) What are your force's target times for armed police responses to these post code locations?
2 (a) In the year to April 2024, how many incidents required an armed police response from your force?
(b) Additionally, please provide this information for 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23
Response
Q1a & b:
Our data is not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide 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 applies to the disclosure of the information:
Section 12(1) – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
South Yorkshire police is unable to isolate incident response times for just an armed response call sign. To retrieve this data would require reviewing thousands of incidents to firstly find the ones that involved firearms/armed response unit and then to manually review the locations of the incidents by postcode.
We record in excess of 1000 incidents a day in our communications centre and the process to review each one for the requested time periods would greatly exceed the 18hr’s allowed by the FOI Act.
The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 provide that the cost limit for non-central government public authorities is £450. This must be calculated at the rate of £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 is reasonably estimated to exceed the appropriate limit then the authority is not obliged to consider or comply with the remainder of the request up to the point at which the appropriate limit has been reached. Please note point 30 of the below link:-
Under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, my duty to provide advice and assistance to anyone making a request for information.
Although excess cost removes the force's obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, 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 remainder of your request neither does it bind South Yorkshire Police to any commitment that it will release information in such a manner in the future.
Q1(c) No Information Held – we do not record response times specifically for armed police response.
Q2 (a)&(b) Government data tables containing firearm statistics by force can be found on the following link.
Police use of firearms statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
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.