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Police forceFreedom of Information Act 2000

Surrey Police

Territorial police force responsible for policing in Surrey.

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Official FOI form: Open the official FOI page ↗
Official website: https://www.surrey.police.uk
Contact status: Delivery accepted
Mapping status: Response Received
Contact route last checked: Check date not recorded
Details last checked: 2026-07-28
Mapping information last updated: Check date not recorded

Contact route and mapping progress are separate things. A contact route status describes how the address or form was checked; mapping progress describes how far this project's own request to the organisation has got. Always confirm the route on the organisation's official website before sending a request.

Follow-up FOI planned: name and capability of the data warehouse or Business Intelligence platform, and which field combinations can be reported. Appeals notice held on file alongside the response.

Open the official FOI page Start a request to this organisation Report an incorrect contact

Examples of useful requests

Ideas of requests people commonly send to Surrey Police. Success is not guaranteed — exemptions and cost limits may apply.

Number of stop-and-searches by outcome last year
Spending on Taser equipment in the last financial year
Policy on body-worn video retention
Number of complaints upheld in the last 12 months

What you may be able to request

Some information categories are based on the authority's published responsibilities and may not yet have been confirmed through an FOI response.

Likely areas of responsibility — not yet confirmed by Public Audit.

Recorded crime and incident figures
Policies, procedures and guidance
Spending, equipment and contracts
Staffing and training records
Complaints and conduct figures

These are cautious suggestions based on what organisations of this kind usually do. They are not a statement that this organisation holds these records.

The searchable data bingo card is getting interesting.

Surrey Police confirms that Nationality, Country of Birth, Immigration Status, Language and Interpreter Required fields exist within NICHE RMS — and confirms that existing fields can be searched with offence type and crime outcome, and included in statistical reporting.

This result moves the map from “do the fields exist?” to “what can be done with them?”

NICHE RMS confirmed
Nationality field
Country of birth field
Immigration status field
Language field
Interpreter required field
Combined search confirmed
Statistical reporting confirmed
Additional systems — section 12

Interpreter required

Potentially a new Police Information Map reporting category. Interpreter Required does not establish nationality, immigration status, citizenship or country of birth. Those are separate categories and must never be inferred from it.

Evidence notice

Everything on this page comes from Surrey Police's response to FOI 003850/26. Answers of “no” relate only to the specific NICHE RMS fields Surrey was asked about. They are not evidence that Surrey Police holds no related information elsewhere or in another form.

The NICHE field bingo card

Each square records whether Surrey Police explicitly confirmed that the field exists within NICHE RMS.

Confirmed fields

Nationality
YES
Field confirmed as existing
Country of birth
YES
Field confirmed as existing
Immigration status
YES
Field confirmed as existing
Language
YES
Field confirmed as existing
Interpreter required
YES
Field confirmed as existing

Not confirmed as existing fields within NICHE RMS

FNO marker
NO
Not confirmed as a field Surrey was asked about
Home Office immigration check
NO
Not confirmed as a field Surrey was asked about
Visa status
NO
Not confirmed as a field Surrey was asked about
Refugee status
NO
Not confirmed as a field Surrey was asked about
Asylum status
NO
Not confirmed as a field Surrey was asked about

These answers concern the specific fields Surrey Police was asked about within NICHE RMS. A “no” here does not mean Surrey Police could never hold related information elsewhere, in another system, or in another form.

The big finding

The fields don't just exist.

Surrey Police was asked whether each field that exists can be searched and reported. Its answers were:

Searched individually?
YES
Searched in combination with offence type?
YES
Searched in combination with crime outcome?
YES
Included within management or statistical reports?
YES

This moves the Police Information Map from identifying fields towards understanding how those fields can potentially be combined for statistical analysis.

Interpreter required — a new bingo square

Surrey Police confirms that Interpreter Required exists among the fields identified within NICHE RMS. That makes it a potentially important additional category for the Police Information Map.

Confirmed field: yes

Interpreter required
Offence type
Crime outcome
Management / statistical reporting

Field exists
Individual search capability confirmed for existing fields
Combination with offence type confirmed for existing fields
Combination with crime outcome confirmed for existing fields
Statistical reporting confirmed for existing fields

Important

“Interpreter required” must never be treated as a proxy for nationality, country of birth or immigration status. Someone may require an interpreter for many reasons.

The importance of this field is that Surrey has confirmed it exists as a separate field, and has confirmed search and reporting capabilities for the fields that exist. The next investigation should determine exactly what statistical combinations are possible.

What should we test next?

Only combinations Surrey Police has actually confirmed are marked as confirmed. Everything else is an open follow-up.

Potential reporting matrix for Surrey Police NICHE RMS fields
Field	Individual	Offence type	Crime outcome	Time period	Another demographic field	Statistical report
Nationality	Confirmed	Confirmed	Confirmed	Follow-up	Follow-up	Confirmed
Country of birth	Confirmed	Confirmed	Confirmed	Follow-up	Follow-up	Confirmed
Immigration status	Confirmed	Confirmed	Confirmed	Follow-up	Follow-up	Confirmed
Language	Confirmed	Confirmed	Confirmed	Follow-up	Follow-up	Confirmed
Interpreter required	Confirmed	Confirmed	Confirmed	Follow-up	Follow-up	Confirmed

Surrey Police confirmed individual search, combination with offence type, combination with crime outcome and inclusion in management or statistical reports for the fields that exist. Filtering by time period and combining two demographic fields were not established by this response.

Investigation card

Surrey also mentioned a “data warehouse”

“The data warehouse is a ‘live’ system and is subject to change as incidents are finalised.”

Next question: what is the data warehouse?

What is the system or platform called?
Is reporting generated directly from NICHE RMS?
Does NICHE RMS feed a separate data warehouse?
Is a Business Intelligence platform used?
Which NICHE RMS fields are available in the warehouse?
Can multiple fields be combined simultaneously?
Can reports be filtered by year or date?
Can results be exported as CSV or Excel?

Next FOI → data warehouse & reporting capability

The foundation model

The standard Police Information Map investigation model, applied to this response.

🧱 System
NICHE RMS
🧱 Field
Nationality · Country of birth · Immigration status · Language · Interpreter required
🧱 Search
Confirmed for the fields that exist
🧱 Combination
Offence type — confirmed · Crime outcome — confirmed
🧱 Report
Management and statistical reporting — confirmed
🧱 Multi-field query
Needs further testing
🧱 Data warehouse
Needs mapping
📊 Data
Future targeted statistical FOIs

We're getting closer to the data.

Partial section 12 refusal

Additional systems were not established

Surrey Police refused questions 3 and 4 under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act (cost of compliance). Those questions asked Surrey to identify additional operational, custody or intelligence systems recording nationality, country of birth or foreign national offender information.

Surrey states that Surrey and Sussex Digital, Data and Technology supports in excess of 800 applications and platforms, and that there is no central record detailing all fields and search capabilities across those systems.

The section 12 refusal does not remove the substantive NICHE RMS disclosures Surrey provided for questions 1 and 2. Surrey described those answers as information supplied as a “gesture of goodwill”.

Cross-force comparison

Built only from FOI responses PublicAudit has already verified. Where a force has not answered a category, it is shown as not yet established — never assumed from another force.

Comparison of NICHE capabilities confirmed by Surrey, Gwent and North Wales Police
Capability	Surrey Police	Gwent Police	North Wales Police
NICHE used	Yes — NICHE RMS	Yes — NICHE RMS	Yes — Niche
Nationality field / search	Field exists; existing fields searchable	Searchable and reportable, but not routinely recorded	Searchable and reportable
Country of birth	Field exists	Searchable	Searchable
Immigration status	Field exists	Searchable	Searchable
Asylum status	No — within the fields asked about	Searchable	Searchable
Refugee status	No — within the fields asked about	Searchable	Searchable
Visa status	No — within the fields asked about	Searchable	Searchable
Language	Field exists	❓ Not yet established	❓ Not yet established
Interpreter required	Field exists	❓ Not yet established	❓ Not yet established
Combined search with offence type	Confirmed for existing fields	❓ Not yet established	❓ Not yet established
Outcome filtering	Confirmed for existing fields	Outcome or disposal searchable and reportable	Outcome or disposal searchable and reportable
Statistical reporting	Confirmed for existing fields	Confirmed — NICHE reporting and Business Intelligence	Confirmed — separate reporting system
Separate BI / data warehouse	Data warehouse mentioned; not named	Business Intelligence capability confirmed; not named	Separate reporting system confirmed; not named

Cross-force difference identified

Same software does not necessarily mean the same data model

Within the fields it was asked about in NICHE RMS, Surrey Police answered no to asylum status, refugee status and visa status. Other force responses describe immigration-related categories differently.

Possible explanations could include configuration, terminology, workflows or other systems. None of those explanations is stated as fact here, because the evidence does not establish which applies. This is exactly why PublicAudit maps forces individually.

The Surrey Police record

Force: Surrey Police
FOI reference: 003850/26
Primary identified RMS: NICHE RMS
Nationality: Yes
Country of birth: Yes
Immigration status: Yes
Language: Yes
Interpreter required: Yes
FNO marker: No — within the fields asked about
Home Office immigration check: No — within the fields asked about
Visa status: No — within the fields asked about
Refugee status: No — within the fields asked about
Asylum status: No — within the fields asked about
Existing fields individually searchable: Yes
Existing fields + offence type: Yes
Existing fields + crime outcome: Yes
Existing fields in management or statistical reports: Yes
Data warehouse mentioned: Yes
Data warehouse name: Unknown
Additional systems: Not established — section 12

Comparison warning

Surrey Police specifically warns that police recording criteria may be nationally defined while systems and local data-capture procedures are not generic. It also states that the data warehouse is live, and that incidents can change category as further information becomes available.

PublicAudit can compare what forces say their systems and fields are capable of doing, but future statistical comparisons must account for differences in recording practice, field population, system configuration and changing or live records.

Source and evidence

Authority: Surrey Police
Request: Freedom of Information Act request
Reference: 003850/26
System identified: NICHE RMS

The original Surrey Police response is held on file as the primary evidence, together with the Surrey Police appeals notice supplied alongside it. A downloadable copy will be attached here once uploaded.

The Police Information Map

NICHE RMS
🌍 Nationality · 🌍 Country of birth · 🛂 Immigration status · 🗣️ Language · 🎧 Interpreter required
🔎 Search
🔗 Offence type + crime outcome
📊 Statistical reporting
❓ Data warehouse

Next: find out what combinations it can actually produce.

Ask. Map. Verify. Compare. Publish.

The bingo card is filling up.

PublicAudit.uk

Mapping progress

13 August 2026
Response received
Surrey Police (FOI 003850/26) confirmed that its main records management system is NICHE RMS, and that Nationality, Country of Birth, Immigration Status, Language and Interpreter Required exist as fields within it. Within the specific fields asked about, Surrey answered no to an FNO marker, Home Office immigration check, visa status, refugee status and asylum status. Surrey confirmed that fields which exist can be searched individually, searched in combination with offence type, searched in combination with crime outcome, and included in management or statistical reports. Surrey also referred to a "data warehouse" which it did not name, and said it is a live system subject to change as incidents are finalised. Questions asking Surrey to identify additional operational, custody or intelligence systems were refused under section 12 (cost of compliance), on the basis that Surrey and Sussex Digital, Data and Technology supports in excess of 800 applications and platforms with no central record of their fields and search capabilities.

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