FOI 0767-2023/24- Clare's Law disclosures

Request:

Q1. Since the introduction of Clare’s Law in 2014, how many Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme applications has the force received?

Q2. Of those applications, how many have been approved and how many have been rejected? And what was the reason?

Q3. Lastly, of the total number of applications how many were in relation to someone who’s historically been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence and/or abuse?

Response:

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you.

Q1 & Q2. Please see the table below the number of Domestic Vilolence Disclosure Scheme applications made to North Yorkshire Police for the period between 2018 and 2023, broken down by year and number requested and disclosed.

Year	Requested/Instigated	Disclosed
2018	279	U/K
2019	503	189
2020	574	271
2021	648	284
2022	907	402
2023 (As at 06/11/23)	1,005	316 (+35 due to disclose)

Please note we only hold figures for 2018-2023 and are also unable to state the number disclosed in 2018.

Reasoning for disclosure not taking place can be for, but not limited to, the following reasons:

• A lack of disclosable history, meaning threshold for disclosure is not met.
• A disclosure being drafted, but not being delivered due to Person At Risk (PAR) not engaging, despite efforts to engage.
• A disclosure being drafted, but it not being deemed safe to disclose at the time, e.g. close proximity of perpetrator, living with the perpetrator, child contact issues, but where other agencies have eyes and ears regularly on the PAR and the disclosure will be planned when safe to do so.
• The disclosure is conducted by another force area because the PAR lives outside our force area. Updates are sometimes updated on their systems or returned to us if unsuccessful.
• A decision being made to pursue an alternative means of disclosure following a DVDS instigation, e.g other Police Common Law disclosure , Probation/Offender Management/Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)/ Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme (CSODS - Sarah’s law) .
• A decision after consulting other agencies that a disclosure would not be suitable to give to the PAR due to extenuating circumstances. This is where a disclosure may increase the risk to the PAR and/or the perpetrator this could include situations of the PAR suffering a  Mental Health crisis and/or having acute substance misuse. These cases can be reviewed at any time.

Q3. We do not hold separate/specific figures for how many involved someone who has been historically arrested on suspicion of domestic abuse.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.