Dangerous Dogs Seized and Destroyed in 2022
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) places two duties on public authorities:
Unless exemptions apply, the first duty (at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held.
The second duty (at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
However, where exemptions are relied upon (Section 17 of FOIA), there is a requirement to provide the applicant with an explanation either:
- a) stating the fact
- b) detailing the exemption(s) in question and
- c) why the exemption applies (if not apparent).
Information Request
Please can I have the data for questions 1-3 by calendar year, and for question 4 by financial year.
Please can you tell me:
- Q1: The number of dogs seized by your force (dogs that are out of control, aggressive, have attacked someone or are considered dangerous) in 2022?
- Q2: How many dogs have been put down/destroyed in 2022?
- Q3: How many suspected banned breeds of dogs have been seized by your force in 2022?
- Q4: The annual cost (in financial years) to your force of kennels, veterinary treatment, and of putting down/destroying these dogs for 2022/23 thus far?
FOI Duty
First Duty – Essex Police holds some of the information relating to your request
Second Duty – See below
Fact - It is not possible to extract and verify all the data in your request
Exemption - Section 12(1)
Refusal - Section 17(5) of FOIA
Reasoning – In respect of Question 4, Essex Police are unable to report on the financial data required. As set out in the previous FOI disclosures, the Care of Dogs is contracted out and the data on Kennelling is not held in a central log, it is not therefore available in an extractable format.
Each Invoice for the Care of Dogs would need to be manually reviewed, as the Invoices include Kennelling but also include may include Veterinary fees and without examining each one to determine whether or not the precise cost of Kennelling was indicated and then this would mean creation of a report for data - which would take approximately 30 minutes per invoice / transaction line to establish the facts – this would take considerable resource to achieve and, therefore, is regarded as excessive and would exceed the time and cost limits under the Act.
Duty to assist – When refusing a request on cost (Section 12(1)/12(2), outside of the act and in effort to assist we can provide the following
Essex Police can report the latest available data to end of December 2022 for Questions 1, 2 & 3 as follows:
Caveat: The data is correct as at 31/01/2023.
Question 1: The number of dogs seized:
2022 to end of December – 107
Question 2: The number of dogs seized under the Dangerous Dogs Act that were destroyed:
2022 to end of December - 55
Question 3: The number of dogs seized that are considered suspected banned breeds of dogs:
2022 to end of December - 11
Every effort is made to ensure that the data provided by Essex Police is accurate and complete. However, Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the purposes of providing data to answer specific FOI enquiries. Please note although data can be extracted from a number of sources via database queries, the results may be subject to inaccuracies. Care should be taken to understand our return when considering the interpretation or further use of the data.
Related Documents/Links
Offences 008/21 & 008/22 - Dogs 2017 to 2022
Seized Dogs June 2019 to May 2020
Seizures of Dangerous & Banned Breed Dogs 2022
Types of Dogs Seized by the Police for Being Dangerously Out of Control 2019 to 2021