Access Mobile Phone Records

I would like to know how much money was given by the police force to mobile phone companies in order to access mobile phone records every year from 2000 to 2010 (until 11 October 2010).

In accordance with section 1(1) (b) of the Act our response is provided below;

We only have data from 2007 as follows

For fiscal years 2007/2008 £225831

2008/2009 £167052

2009/2010 £118366

For the current financial year Cheshire Constabulary is now part of the Home Office Central Cost Recovery Scheme. The Home Office is supporting a pilot so that the total cost of each communication provider is agreed in advance by the police forces through a governance body representative of police forces and other public authorities and will be paid by the Home Office. The total is than recovered later in the financial year from public authorities via an apportionment mechanism based on prior usage. This means that the Cheshire Constabulary will not be able to give the specifics of their costs until the end of the financial year.

This information will be published once reconciled in June following the end of each Fiscal year. Therefore this information is exempt in accordance with Section 22 of The Freedom of Information Act 2000. Information Intended for Future Publication.

There are of course general arguments that information is made available in order to promote transparency and accountability particularly in relation to financial issues but this is negated by the fact the any information held thus far would be inaccurate and would therefore give a totally false account. We believe that in all the circumstances the public interest lies in maintaining the exemption at section 22