18^th March 2010

Dear Mr Jarman,

Freedom of Information Appeal - Reference A0002/2010

I have considered your complaint and request for an Internal Review made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) on the 20^th February 2010, in order to review the response to your request.

Procedural Process

Having read the case file for your request, I understand that you submitted your request on 11^th December 2009 and that you did not receive a response until 17^th February 2010, a delay of 25 days beyond the statutory limit. I note from the case file that you did receive a letter from Superintendent Joyce on 7^th January 2010 asking you to clarify your preferred method of response and also offering the Force's apologies for delays in processing your request. I feel that the delay is unfortunate, though this has been due to the large number of FOI requests that the Force has received and staff shortages due to illness and leave. I can only apologise for the delay and for the lack of information you were given in relation to the reasons for the delay. I have asked the Freedom of Information (FOI) Team to ensure that this does not happen again and have asked then to ensure that responders who might be experiencing delays in receiving their answers, be given updates on a regular basis, and for these updates not only to explain why the delay is occurring but also to try and give them some idea as to when they're likely to receive a reply. Although this is no consolation to you, the Force has attempted to put things right by drafting additional staff into the unit to help reduce current backlogs.

The Response

Your initial request (11 December 2009) was for information relating to police injury pensions. In your request for an Internal Review (dated 20 February 2010), you asked for a detailed breakdown of how costs had been calculated. (As this was the basis for your request being refused).

The basis for the refusal, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, where cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit, was made due to the fact that the documents your were seeking (which you specified as meaning `any record whether in printed or digital form, including reports, minutes or transcripts of meetings, notes, memoranda, letters or e-mail, etc… ) would have involved a manual search of both electronic and paper based systems. The estimate made by the staff seeking this information was based upon the time to determine whether the information was held, then locating it, retrieving the information and then extracting it from the source. This process was made up of the following actions:

I do note from the response provided to you that there was a figure of 73 hours mentioned in respect of the time taken to collate this information, though it does appear that insufficient detail was given as to how this time was arrived at. However, under the heading `Advice and Assistance' in the same letter, you were offered the opportunity to receive information that was within the legal cost / timeframe, which would have gone some way to satisfying your request. I note that this offer has not yet been taken.

In summary, I feel that the FOI Team did make the right decision in not providing you with any information, though the offer was there to be provided with answers to 4 out of 6 of your questions. You should have been given a more detailed breakdown as to how the estimate of time taken to locate your information had been arrived at, something which I will ask the FOI staff to make sure they provide in future requests of this nature. I am also concerned that your response did not reach you until 25 days after the legal requirement to respond and that you were not kept in touch with events that caused this delay. I can only apologise again on behalf of the Force with regard to the manner in which your request was dealt with and trust that you believe that amendments to previous processes have been put in place so as to ensure that this situation does not happen again.

If you are not satisfied with this response and wish to take this appeal further you will need to contact the Information Commissioner's Office, quoting this Appeal Reference, the reason for your appeal and the fact that you've already been through the first stage of the Appeals process. The address of the Information Commissioner's Office is as follows:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545 745

Fax: 01625 524 510

Yours sincerely,

Steven Harding

Head of Information Management