Tuesday, 9^th February 2010

Dear Mr Jarman

FOI Reference No: FOI-20094/12254

Thank you for your request for information received by West Yorkshire Police on 14 December 2009.

You requested the following information:

I am seeking certain information related to police injury pensions.

1. Do you have a written policy governing the management and review of police injury pensions? If you do, please provide me with a copy.

2. Since August 2004, to date, how many injury pensions have been reduced when reviewed?

3. Since August 2004, to date, how many injury pensions have been increased when reviewed?

4. Since August 2004, to date, how many injury pensions have been reduced to the lowest band when the former officer in receipt of the pension reached (or had already reached) the age of 65?

5. If your force has any document recording any analysis and/or consideration of the guidance contained in Annex C to Home Office circular 46/2004 please supply me with a copy.

6. If your force has any document recording any calculation and/or projection of the potential budgetary savings and/or financial impact that might result from adoption of the guidance contained in Annex C to Home Office circular 46/2004 please supply me with a copy.

Notes:

In this request, the term document should be taken to mean any record whether in printed or digital form, including reports, minutes or transcripts of meetings, notes, memoranda, letters, and email, etc.

Any information you supply should be in any standard digital format, such as MS Word (.doc) or Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf) and sent to the address indicated, where it will be available for viewing by visitors to the whatdotheyknow.com web site.evaluation details

Unfortunately, West Yorkshire Police are unable to provide you with any of the information you have requested, because it is exempt under Section 12 as it exceeds the appropriate cost limit. Please see Appendix A for the full legislative explanation as to why West Yorkshire Police are unable to provide you with the information.

Please accept our apologies of the delay in dealing with your request. This is due to the large volume of Freedom of Information requests currently being dealt with by West Yorkshire Police.

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.

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.

Appendix A

FOI Reference No: FOI- 20094/4084

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.

Section 17 of the Act provides:

(1) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is to any extent relying on a claim that information is exempt information must, within the time for complying with Section 1(1), give the applicant a notice which:-

(a) states the fact,

(b) specifies the exemption in question, and

(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

REASONS FOR DECISION

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 appropriate limit

I can confirm that we do hold this information but you have specified within your request `any document' and given a definition of the term as a document should be taken to mean any record whether in printed or digital form, including reports, minutes or transcripts of meetings, notes, memoranda, letters, and email, etc. unfortunately there is no automated mechanism that would allow us to easily collate the required data in the timeframe allowed by the Freedom of Information Act in order to satisfy your request. It has been estimated that it would take approximately 73 hours to conduct both electronic and manual searches for all the information and documents you have requested.

It has therefore 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.

Please note that our Association of Chief Officers of Police guidance states that where the statutory cost limit is exceeded, forces do not issue fees notices.

ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE

Under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, it is the duty of a public authority to provide advice and assistance to persons who have made request for information in assisting an applicant to focus his or her request, together with indicating the information that would be available within the cost limit (as required by section 45 Code of Practice of the Act). In order to bring this request within the legal cost / timeframe West Yorkshire Police has calculated that we would be able to offer you a response to Questions 1 to 4. If you would like to revise your request, as previously described, please contact us in writing, contact details as per above letter head, in order to confirm the fact.

Please note that police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you may receive from other police forces.