Burglary statistics 2020-2023

Date of request: 14 February 2024
Reference: 267-24

Request

I would like to request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act on burglary cases by Local Policing Area.

Please can I have this information for each of the past four calendar years (2023, 2022, 2021, 2020).

The total number of burglary cases reported to your force, broken down by Local Policing Area.
The number of burglary cases that were closed without a suspect being identified, again broken down by Local Policing Area.
The average time (in hours, minutes and seconds) it took for police to arrive on the scene of domestic burglary incidents, broken down by Local Policing Area.

If your force does not use Local Policing Areas, please can you provide an equivalent local breakdown e.g. by local authority.

Response

Avon and Somerset Police have searched our crime recording database for crimes recorded in the offence group ‘burglary’ 2020-2023. Attempted burglary reports have been excluded.

The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.

Question 1

	2020	2021	2022	2023	Sum:
Bath & North East Somerset	581	534	600	578	2293
Bristol East	623	576	630	638	2467
Bristol North and Central	992	1003	955	918	3868
Bristol South	656	610	612	581	2459
North Somerset	619	509	516	485	2129
Somerset East	704	530	536	644	2414
Somerset West	843	595	710	736	2884
South Gloucestershire	759	705	753	695	2912
Sum:	5777	5062	5312	5275	21426

Question 2

The Outcome Codes that relate to no suspect being identified are OC14 and OC18 and shown below. However, it should be noted that these outcome codes do not solely cover no suspect identified but include other categories as well as shown in the table below. For instance, when a report is made but it is later established that there is no crime (items located for instance), then outcome code 18 may be used to file the case, but outcome 18 also applies to no suspect. To accurately respond to this question all 16,816 records would need to be reviewed which would attract a refusal under Section 12 for exceeding the £450 cost limit.

	2020	2021	2022	2023	Sum:
OC14 – No Suspect / Victim Decline	202	194	279	264	939
OC18 – No Suspect / No Line Enquiry / Filed	4426	3762	3921	3768	15877
Sum:	4628	3956	4200	4032	16816

Question 3

The Freedom of Information Act allows a right of access to recorded information; there is no obligation for us to create information to satisfy a request. For the purposes of the Act, information that is already recorded or documented at the time of the request can be disclosed (subject to any relevant exemptions). Information will not be held for the purposes of the Act where it relates to, for example, averages, understanding, knowledge and opinion and is not recorded.