They said it wasn’t available. Now they admit it is — they just won’t give it to you.
Let’s strip this right back.
For months, the line from West Midlands Police was simple:
Child abuse data for Sandwell prior to 2021?
“Not available due to system changes/issues.”
That’s now been formally corrected.
Because following further FOI requests and an internal review, the truth is this:
The data is held
It is archived in a central database
The police have access to individual data lines
And it can be retrieved
So no — it wasn’t missing.
It wasn’t lost.
It wasn’t unavailable.
👉 It was there all along.
The shift: from “not available” to “too difficult”
Now the position has changed.
The data isn’t being refused because it doesn’t exist.
It’s being refused because:
it would take more than 18 hours to extract
That’s Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act — the cost limit.
So let’s be clear about what that means in practice:
They can get the data
They know where it is
They just won’t retrieve it within FOI limits
That’s not a system failure.
That’s a decision.
And here’s where it starts to unravel
During the internal review, more historic data suddenly appeared.
Additional figures for 2018–2021 were extracted and disclosed from the same system.
So the obvious question is:
👉 If it’s too difficult to retrieve — how has more of it just been retrieved?
You can’t have it both ways.
Either:
the system can be queried
orit can’t
Right now, we’re being told both.
The missing help they’re supposed to give
FOI law is very clear on this.
If a request is too large, the authority must help you narrow it.
That could mean:
fewer years
one offence category
aggregated totals
force-wide data instead of local breakdowns
Instead, the response says:
no reasonable suggestion can be provided
That’s not assistance.
That’s avoidance.
Meanwhile in Sandwell: numbers without clarity
Separate FOI responses from the safeguarding side show:
thousands of referrals alleging abuse or neglect each year
significant peaks between 2017–2019
ongoing Section 47 investigations into child protection concerns
But here’s the problem:
👉 None of it clearly explains the headline figure everyone keeps coming back to:
6,226 child abuse allegations (2012–2016)
We still don’t know:
exactly what was counted
how it was defined
or how it compares to what came after
And when asked for definitions?
We’re pointed to generic GOV.UK pages.
That’s not transparency.
That’s deflection.
And the documents that might explain it?
Refused.
Requests for:
Partnership Board minutes
dashboards
briefing papers
…have been blocked under exemptions.
No redaction.
No summary.
No attempt to release high-level information.
Just a blanket refusal.
The bit that really matters
This isn’t about technicalities.
It’s about this:
Data exists
Data is accessible
Data has been partially extracted
But full disclosure?
👉 Still not happening.
And while all this is going on…
Police data shows hundreds of sexual offences against children every year.
Yet at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, safeguarding language remains broad and carefully worded.
Child abuse is mentioned.
But Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) — one of the most serious and historically sensitive forms — isn’t explicitly named.
That’s not a legal point.
That’s a political one.
Where this goes next
This is now with the Information Commissioner's Office.
Because the issues are clear:
“Not available” has become “held but inconvenient”
Data has been partially retrieved, undermining the refusal
No meaningful assistance has been provided to narrow the request
Key context remains withheld
Final word
If a public authority says:
“We hold the data”
“We can access it”
“We’ve already extracted some of it”
Then the question isn’t whether the data exists.
👉 The question is:
Why are you still not being allowed to see it properly?
Because when it comes to child abuse,
“too difficult to retrieve” isn’t an answer.
#Sandwell #ChildProtection #Safeguarding #CSE #ChildSexualExploitation #FOI #Transparency #Accountability #WestMidlandsPolice #ICO #PublicInterest #DataMatters
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