OFFICIAL Our Ref: IM-FOI-2021-1113 Date: 9 June 2021 FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 2002 I refer to your recent request for information which has been handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. For ease of reference, your request is replicated below together with the response. Can you please provide details of how many assaults have been made by members of the public on police officers serving in Perth and Kinross over the last two years. There are two different approaches which could be taken in attempting to provide a response to your request. Details of both have been provided below in order to provide as complete a picture as possible. Recorded Crimes Crimes in Scotland are recorded in accordance with the Scottish Government Justice Department offence classifications and they are not thereafter subcategorised. In terms of your request, the relevant classification is assault of an emergency worker or, in some cases, the even more general serious assault. Given this is wider in scope than your request - which relates only to police officers - it is not data we would usually provide in response to such a request. However, Police Scotland continue to use the legacy crime recording systems of the eight former Scottish forces and the legacy Tayside police system, which contains information regarding crimes in the Perth and Kinross local authority area, also allows for a search to be conducted based on the relevant legislation for each crime. On that basis, we are able on this occasion to narrow down, to an extent, the recorded crimes for assault of an emergency worker and serious assault. For your request, we have searched for: - section 90(1)(a) of the Police And Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 - section 41(1)(a) of the Police Scotland) Act 1967 - section 89(1) of the Police Act 1996 (British Transport Police) - any reference in the absence of specific legislation in that field to ‘officer’ assault scotland.police.uk @PoliceScotland PoliceScotland OFFICIAL OFFICIAL Data has been provided on that basis but it should be noted that some of the legislation extends further than police officers - for example section 90 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 states: The information is provided below notwithstanding: Recorded Police Assaults for Perth and Kinross Area Command. 1st April 2019 - 30th April 2021 broken by financial year 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 (to 30th April) Police Assaults 103 119 6 Can you also please supply details of i) details of the location of these assaults i.e. in Perth, or Crieff or Kinross and ii) the kind of assault – such as a punch, kick or use of a weapon? I have first considered this part of your request in terms of the crime data provided above. The crime recording systems used by Police Scotland have no facility whereby the exact locus, weapon or type of assault can be extracted for statistical purposes and as such, each and every crime report would need to be individually examined to determine the circumstances of the offence. scotland.police.uk @PoliceScotland PoliceScotland OFFICIAL OFFICIAL On this basis, I regret to inform you that I am unable to provide you with the information you have requested, as it would prove too costly to do so within the context of the fee regulations. As you may be aware the current cost threshold is £600 and I estimate that it would cost well in excess of this amount to process your request. As such, and in terms of Section 16(4) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 where Section 12(1) of the Act (Excessive Cost of Compliance) has been applied, this represents a refusal notice for the information sought. The only possible way to accurately determine the details of the assault is to locate and interrogate all 228 relevant crime reports for the period requested, an exercise I would estimate to take at least 10 - 15 minutes per report, exceeding the cost limitations of the Act. Health and Safety Information Notwithstanding, to try and assist further I have also provided an extract of data taken from the Health & Safety accident forms which are submitted by the officer on SCoPE and is only for the period 1st April 2020 to 31 March 2021. Data was not captured for any early period due to changes in recording practices. It is important to highlight that this is not comparable with the information above as the datasets below only provide information if it has been recorded by officers. Furthermore, details on specific locations may not be an exact match in relation to actual geographical area and accordingly for the purposes of this section “Perth and Kinross” will be defined as those officers employed within DP Sub-Division. For the avoidance of doubt this particular data only includes actual physical contact has been made and/or an injury has been sustained. These figures do not include “near misses” or attempted assaults, nor does it necessarily include all events in the date range as some officers may not have submitted a form at the date of request. On that basis the following information reflects information held on our systems and which relates to the information sought: Recorded by Officer 1 April 2020 – 31 March 2021 broken by financial year Primary Hazard Type 2020/21 Primary Hazard Type 2020/21 Kicking 25 Head-Butt 5 Struggle 16 Blunt Object <5 Spit 14 Offensive Weapon <5 Punch 12 Push <5 Other 8 Vehicle <5 Bite (Human) 6 Total 79 scotland.police.uk @PoliceScotland PoliceScotland OFFICIAL OFFICIAL If you require further assistance or are dissatisfied with the way in which Police Scotland has dealt with your request, you are entitled, in the first instance, to request a review of our actions and decisions. Your request must specify the matter which gives rise to your dissatisfaction and it must be submitted within 40 working days of receiving this response - either by email to [email protected] or by post to Information Management (Disclosure), Police Scotland, Clyde Gateway, 2 French Street, Dalmarnock, G40 4EH. If you remain dissatisfied following the outcome of that review, you are thereafter entitled to apply to the Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner within six months for a decision. You can apply online, by email to [email protected] or by post to Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner, Kinburn Castle, Doubledykes Road, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9DS. Should you wish to appeal against the Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner's decision, there is an appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law only. As part of our commitment to demonstrate openness and transparency in respect of the information we hold, an anonymised version of this response will be posted to the Police Scotland Freedom of Information Disclosure Log in seven days' time. scotland.police.uk @PoliceScotland PoliceScotland OFFICIAL .