Wednesday 8^th April 2009

Dear Mr Charlesworth,

FOI Reference No: FOI-20092/77769

I write in connection with your request for information dated 6th Mar 2009 and listed below. Your request for information has now been considered and the information asked for under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is as follows:

You state in your pledge that you aim to get to all 999 callers within 10 minutes.

How many callers to 999 received police attendance within 10 minutes, and how many within 11-20 minutes, and how many 21 minutes plus? For 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. I do not require a monthly breakdown, just annual figures.

Please note that the above quote is incorrect, West Yorkshire Police's Policing Pledge states the following aim:-

5. Aim to answer 999 calls within 10 seconds, deploying to emergencies immediately giving an estimated time of arrival, getting to you safely and as quickly as possible. We will aim to get to you within 15 minutes.

As a consequence our Performance figures regarding call handling are based on the above point and are as follows:-

West Yorkshire Police Call Handling Performance 2001/02 to 2007/08

In relation to police officer attendance, your request has 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 it is not held in an easily retrievable format. No automated mechanism exists to extract and collate the data and to manually do so would be a complex and time consuming process. It has been estimated that to carry out the retrieval and collation of the requested data would take approximately seven hours per year requested, which equates to 49 hours in total. Therefore, 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 for the whole request. Approximately 10 hours of inclusive time has been spent on the remainder of this request.

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.

You also state in your pledge that you 'Always treat you fairly, with dignity and respect, ensuring that
you have fair access to our services at a time that is reasonable and suitable for you.' Please could you confirm how much 'customer care' training officers receive and how they are generally monitored in this respect.

Customer Care inputs are included as an integral part of our Induction Training Programmes for all staff, and we also provide diversity training for all and, where appropriate, communication, conflict management training and training around mental health issues.

Monitoring of customer care occurs on two levels, through continuous assessment in class, practical exercises, tutored patrol, National Occupational Standards, staff personal development reviews, whilst force wide it is monitored via QADS (Quality Assurance Dip Sampling), Excel nominations, letters of complaint, scrutiny panels for race/hate crime and stop searches and Swift surveys that are conducted on behalf of the police service with the general public.

Please could you also confirm for each year 2001 to 2008 inclusive how many upheld complaints in total were received regards attitudes of police officers and civilians towards the public. Incivility, impoliteness and intolerance is the category I would request information on. Please could you provide also then, total complaints annually for all categories but as one figure per year in addition to the specific category.

2001/2:

Total no of complaint cases - 471

Impoliteness, incivility and intolerance - 168

2002/3 :

Total no of complaint cases - 479

Impoliteness, incivility and intolerance - 150

2003/4 :

Total no of complaint cases - 537

Impoliteness, incivility and intolerance - 174

2004/5 :

Total no of compliant cases - 600

Impoliteness, incivility and intolerance - 183

2005/6 :

Total no of complaint cases - 801

Impoliteness, incivility and intolerance - 200

2006/7:

Total no of complaint cases - 1021

Impoliteness, incivility and intolerance - 265

2007/8:

Total no of complaint cases - 800

Impoliteness, incivility and intolerance - 260

2008/9 :

Total no of complaint cases - 878

Impoliteness, incivility and intolerance - 286

Please also furnish me with the West Yorkshire Police pledges for 2001 to 2008 inclusive.

Please note that The Policing Pledge is the first time that this term has been used on our website, as a consequence we do not hold previous “Policing Pledges”.

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.

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

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

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.