They said it wasn’t available. Now they admit it is — they just won’t give it to you. Child Abuse

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
  or

• it 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