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NFRS 2023 89 - Unwanted fire signals

You asked for

Could I get data on how many UFAs (Unwanted Fire Alarm signals) you have got over the last 10 years in the Nottingham area. Could you also include the street, building, and building type each of the call outs came from. Please could it also include how much money it costs for these unnecessary call outs.

Our Response

  1. Total number of UFAs (Unwanted Fire Alarm signals) over the last 10 years inthe Nottingham area

    Answer: - 19,699 incidents (including dwellings)

  2. UFAs (Unwanted Fire Alarm signals) over the last 10 years in the Nottingham area by street, building, building type.

    Answer: - Please refer to the attached spreadsheet (.csv, 304Kb). Be advised, domestic dwellings have not been included and are deemed exempt by virtue of section 40(2) personal information of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

  3. Estimated total cost.

    Answer: - £ 1,560,402.50 (including dwellings) Be advised that the cost is calculated on the number of appliances and full crew attending. We calculate the cost per half hour and per hour to a fixed rate.

Section 40: - Personal Information

(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if—

  1. it constitutes personal data which does not fall within subsection (1), and
  2. the first, second or third condition below is satisfied.

(3A) The first condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act—

  1. would contravene any of the data protection principles, or
  2. would do so if the exemptions in section 24(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018 (manual unstructured data held by public authorities) were disregarded.

(3B) The second condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene Article 21 of the GDPR (general processing: right to object to processing).

(4A) The third condition is that—

  1. on a request under Article 15(1) of the GDPR (general processing: right of access by the data subject) for access to personal data, the information would be withheld in reliance on provision made by or under section 15, 16 or 26 of, or Schedule 2, 3 or 4 to, the Data Protection Act 2018, or
  2. (b) on a request under section 45(1)(b) of that Act (law enforcement processing: right of access by the data subject), the information would be withheld in reliance on subsection (4) of that section.

Section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is categorised as an Absolute and Class Based type exemption and therefore does not require a public interest test to be carried nor must Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service articulate the harm in disclosure.