Information Commissioner's Office

Summary: The complainant requested the exact number of Registered Sex Offenders (RSO) in the Sussex Police Authority area. He also requested a geographical breakdown of the figure and suggested that Sussex Police provide him with RSO numbers per district. Sussex Police provided the area level figure but refused to provide a geographical breakdown of that figure citing Section 31 (Law Enforcement exemption) and Section 38 (Health and Safety exemption) as its basis for refusal. it argued that the public interest in maintaining these exemptions outweighed the public interest in disclosing the requested information. Sussex Police advised the Commissioner that it held a geographical breakdown of its area figures by division rather than district and provided the Commissioner with these divisional figures. Comparing the divisional figures with publicly available population statistics, the Commissioner concluded that it would not be possible to identify individual RSOs from those figures were they to be disclosed. The Commissioner has decided that Section 31 and Section 38 do not apply to the requested information and has required Sussex Police to release RSO numbers for each Sussex Police division as at April 2005.
Section of Act/EIR & Finding: FOI 31 - Complaint Upheld, FOI 38 - Complaint Upheld