PCSO's Employed & Crimes Detected

1. How many PCSO's does Cheshire Constabulary employee and what is the total bill for their employment for the year 2010 and 2009. 
2. How may crimes have these PCSO's detected in 2010 and 2009.
3. How many fixed penalty notices were handed out by the PCSO's for the year 2010 and 2009.
4. How much is the police budget being cut by.
5. What is the annual cost of the police helicopter.

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

I can confirm that the Cheshire Constabulary holds information in relation to your questions 1 and 3 and partial information in respect of question 5. However from our preliminary assessment, we estimate that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000. This is currently £450. The reason for this is that in order to answer question 3, to determine the numbers of fixed penalty notices issued by PCSO's, we would have to manually examine the entries on the VFPO (Fixed penalty) database to calculate those numbers. This it is estimated would take 20 hours of work for one person at a cost of £550. This would exceed the appropriate limit.

The appropriate limit is defined in the Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004, which is covered by statutory Instrument Number 3244 of 2004. Furthermore, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows a public authority to refuse to respond to a request for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit as defined by the above mentioned regulations.

Although we are unable to comply with your request, in order to assist you we can say that in respect of PCSO's this information is already published on our web site. Please see the following web pages: What We Spend and How we spend it

In respect of question 2. There is no information held. PCSO' are not detectives or police officers they are the link between the community and the police.

In respect of question 4. This information is published by the Cheshire Police Authority. Please view their website:

Cheshire Police Authority Website

And in respect of question 5, we do not hold this information. We have not owned the helicopter for a year and no costs will have been assessed.