Monday 1st June 2009

Dear Mr Charlesworth,

FOI Reference No: FOI-20093/35261

I write in connection with your request dated 22nd May 2009 concerning the following:

Under the freedom of information act i wish to know.

1: How many serving police officers in 2008 in West Yorkshire have been convicted of a criminal offence?

2: How many serving police officers in 2008 in West Yorkshire have been cautioned for a criminal offence.

As ALL cautions and convictions have to be declared on their application forms including driving offences i would find it reasonable to have this information recorded.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 creates a statutory right of access to information held by public authorities. A public authority in receipt of a request must, if permitted, state under Section 1(a) of the Act, whether it holds the requested information, and, if held, then communicate that information to the applicant under Section 1(b) of the Act.

The right of access to information is not without exception and is subject to a number of exemptions which are designed to enable public authorities to withhold information that is unsuitable for release. Importantly, the Act is designed to place information into the public domain, that is, once access to information is granted to one person under the Act, it is then considered public information and must be communicated to any individual should a request be received.

DECISION:

Your request for information has been considered and I regret to inform you that West Yorkshire Police cannot comply. This letter serves as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

REASON FOR DECISION:

Section 17 of the Act provides:

The reason that we are unable to provide you with this information is covered by the following exemption(s):

Section 12 - Where cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit:

I can confirm that we do hold this information but unfortunately it is not in an easily retrievable format nor is there an automated mechanism that would allow us to easily collate the required data.

Cautions and convictions must be declared at the time of applying to become a Police Officer with West Yorkshire Police. In addition, West Yorkshire Police requires serving police officers to notify the Force if they have been cautioned, convicted or have received a penalty notice for any offence. Information is also obtained from other Police Forces under the `Notifiable Occupations' legislation.

Disciplinary action is considered in each case where notification or information is received and each case is treated on its merits. The information and subsequent action is recorded on the personnel file of the individual. It is not recorded or held on a central database.

Therefore, as explained, the relevant information would be held on the personnel file of the individual concerned. To obtain the information you seek would entail a manual check of each personnel record held for West Yorkshire Police Officers. As of 31^st March 2009, West Yorkshire Police employed approximately 4,379 Police Officers. To conduct a manual search of these files, at a time estimate of 10 minutes per file would take over 700 hours. It has been estimated that the cost of providing you with this information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the 'appropriate level' as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004, which currently stands at £450 or 18 hours worth of work.

Our ACPO guidance states that we do not issue fees notices and therefore in accordance with the

Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Section 16 - Advice & Assistance:

As part of our duty to provide advice and assistance under Section16 of the Act, West Yorkshire Police has an obligation, where a request has been turned down on the basis of an exemption, to assist the applicant in formulating a request that would be less likely to attract an exemption. The following information may enable you to revise your question to one which is less likely to attract a section 12 refusal. Since 2006 West Yorkshire Police have kept a separate record of all potential recruits to the force that have been approved or turn down based on their convictions. Therefore we would be able to provide you with a limited set of data that would inform you of whether our recent recruits (new and transferees only) had convictions or not at the time of their joining West Yorkshire Police. If you believe that this data-set goes some way to answering your request for information, please re-contact this office (details as per above letterhead) with a revised question/s and we will progress the matter accordingly.

Police forces providing information do not use generic systems, nor are the procedures used for capturing the data the same. It should be noted that for these reasons this Forces response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.

If you would like to discuss this with me further do not hesitate to contact me.

COMPLAINT RIGHTS

If you are not satisfied with how this request has been handled or with the information provided, please read the advice notice attached to this letter. If you do wish to take up your right of complaint, please remember to quote the reference number above in any future correspondence.

Yours sincerely

Janette Mitchell

Freedom of Information Project Officer

pp Steven Harding

Head of Information Management

The West Yorkshire Police in complying with their statutory duty under sections 1 and 11 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to release the enclosed information will not breach the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. However, the rights of the copyright owner of the enclosed information will continue to be protected by law. Applications for the copyright owner's written permission to reproduce any part of the attached information should be addressed to The Force Solicitor, West Yorkshire Police Headquarters, PO Box 9, Laburnum Road, Wakefield WF1 3QP.