Dear Greater Manchester Police,

1. What training are your officers (including detectives and senior officers and civilian staff) given in respect of dealing with people who have autism, be that person a witness, victim or suspect? If there is such training is the training done once, or is it repeated regularly?

2. Do you have a policy in respect of how your force should treat people who have autism, if so please send me a copy, as I cannot find one online.

3. If you have training as described at question 1, is this training compulsory or voluntary? Please provide any training slides, presentations or notes that are handed out or made available.

4. If you have training as described at question 1, when was it introduced, when was it last refreshed?

5. If you have training as described at question 1, how many of your officers as described in question 1, broken down by rank and civilian status undertook such training for each of the calendar years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021?

6. What was the total number of staff in your force, by rank and civilian status in each of the years referred to at question 5?

7. How many people, including witnesses, victims and suspects were recorded as being autistic in each of the years referred to at question 5? Please provide a breakdown buy witness, victim and suspect.

8. How is the effectiveness of the training described at question 1 monitored?

Yours faithfully,

Matthew Lockett

Dear Greater Manchester Police,

Your response to my request is now overdue. Could you please send your response immediately?

Yours faithfully,

Matthew Lockett

Dear Greater Manchester Police,

Thank you for your response.

I note that:

"GMP is obligated, pursuant to section 16(1) of the Act to provide you with advice and assistance on refining your request to bring compliance within the fees limit. In order for the force to keep this within the fees limit, the information that you are requesting will need to be limited to a specific event."

There is a different way of approaching your advice and assistance rather than focusing on a particular event, which is something that Cheshire Constabulary have done, in that they have advised me that they hold the information for questions 1 to 4, and 8.

If you hold such information, and if it won't take 18 hours plus to find it, I'm happy to refine my request and limit it to those 5 questions.

Yours faithfully,

Matthew Lockett