Arrest Figures

1. The total number of arrests during October/ November/ December in 2010

2. The number of charges that were brought during the same period as a result

3. And the same information on the number of arrests and charges, but for the period of October/ November/ December 2009.

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

I can confirm that the Cheshire Constabulary holds the information requested. 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 costs relate to the retrieval of information to answer question 2. For the periods in question there are over 12,000 arrest records. to answer question 2 would require a manual examination of each record to determine the outcome. This would take one staff member several weeks to achieve the results. This it is estimated 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.

In order to assist you we can provide the information relating to you other questions as follows;

1. The total number of arrests during October/ November/ December in 2010

October - 2119
November - 1929
December - 1810

1. The total number of arrests during October/ November/ December in 2009

October - 2088
November - 2061
December - 2086