Tuesday 10th February 2009

Dear Mr Anderson,

FOI Reference No: FOI-20093/25519

I write in connection with your request for information dated 10th February 2009 for information regarding the following:

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

2; How many serving police officers 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.

It has now been considered and I regret to inform you that I cannot supply the information you have requested.

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires West Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you, the applicant, with 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;

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 unfortunately it is not in an easily retrievable format.

As you correctly stated, 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 and members of police staff to notify the force if they have been cautioned, convicted or received a penalty notice for any offence. Information is also obtained from other police forces under `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.

Given the above, to obtain the information you seek would entail a manual check of each personnel record held as there is no mechanism to easily retrieve this information of collate the numbers involved. 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.

As part of our duty to provide advice and assistance under section 16 of the Act, the following information may enable you to revise your question to one which is less likely to attract a section 12 refusal. Occupations provided by an arrested person are recorded on our crime recording system. Therefore, data in relation to arrests of police officers made by West Yorkshire Police can be searched electronically. The result of such searches could narrow down the number of records which would

need to be manually accessed to a level that is below the appropriate fees level. It may also be helpful to consider that a request covering a shorter time period would entail less retrieval and extraction time.

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

Claire Vickers-Pearson

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.