FOIs and SAR Volumes

The request was successful.

Calderdale Against Corruption

Dear South Yorkshire Police,

I would like to know the following information.

1) Between 2015 and 2020, how many Freedom of Information requests were received by SYP?

2) Between 2015 and 2020, how many Subject Access Requests were received by SYP?

3) Between 2015 and 2020, how many staff were available to handle the requests in part 1) and 2)?

Please provide the data organised by year and broken down by the total number per month, and also the cumulative total for the year in question.

Yours faithfully,

Calderdale Against Corruption

FOI, South Yorkshire Police

Dear Calderdale Against Corruption

Thank you for your request for information from South Yorkshire Police.
For a request to be a valid Freedom of Information Request, legislation states we need to have your name.

Can you please reply to this email with your full name – first and surname or initial and surname will be sufficient.
Please see the link below for further details regarding Section 8 of the Freedom of Information Act.

https://ico.org.uk/media/1164/recognisin...

Kind regards

Jane Adamson
Information Compliance Clerk

South Yorkshire Police
Information Compliance Unit
Unit 20, Sheffield 35a Business Park
Churchill Way
Sheffield
S35 2PY

Website address - southyorks.police.uk

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Calderdale Against Corruption

Dear South Yorkshire Police,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

We write to request an internal review of South Yorkshire Police's handling of the FOI request titled 'FOIs and SAR Volumes'.

Your clerk, Jane Adamson, appears to be ignorant as to what constitutes a valid request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, namely that she has requested a name from us.

As Calderdale Against Corruption is a not-for-profit organisation, our name is, self-evidently, "Calderdale Against Corruption", just like when The Guardian newspaper makes FOI requests under their brand name.

We have ICO complaints upheld for refusing to disclose information using the same tactic employed by Jane, so we suggest that you look at updating the training given to Ms Adamson and other staff who handle FOI requests, if only to avoid embarrassing mistakes like this one.

A full history of our FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

Yours faithfully,

Calderdale Against Corruption

Calderdale Against Corruption

Dear Jane Adamson,

We would like to take the opportunity to refer you to the ICO's guidance on valid requests, specifically paying attention to the fact that a requester can be an organisation, for which the "real name" of the requester is the name of the organisation.

"Remember that a request can be made in the name of an organisation" (see the following link under paragraph 2 of the "What makes a request valid?" section)

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...

As such, we expect our request to be processed without any further delay or excuse.

Yours sincerely,

Calderdale Against Corruption

FOI, South Yorkshire Police

7 Attachments

Dear Calderdale Against Corruption

 

Please find attached our response to your Freedom of Information request.

 

Regards

 

Jane Adamson
Information Compliance Clerk 

South Yorkshire Police
Information Compliance Unit

Unit 20, Sheffield 35a Business Park

Churchill Way

Sheffield

S35 2PY 

Website address - southyorks.police.uk

[1]cid:image001.png@01D56D54.5A9FF310 [2]cid:image005.jpg@01D58294.BAFE5B20[3]cid:image002.png@01D56D54.5A9FF310 [4]cid:image003.png@01D56D54.5A9FF310 [5]cid:image004.png@01D56D54.5A9FF310 

 

 

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Calderdale Against Corruption

Dear Ms Adamson,

Thanks for your response to our FOI request.

We are happy to confirm the request has been satisfied, and look forward to receiving the outcome of the Internal Review in relation to the initial handling of the complaint.

Yours sincerely,

Calderdale Against Corruption

J Roberts left an annotation ()

You might be interested in this if you haven't seen it already:

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...

(Sept 2019-Aug 2020)

Police force SAR performance tables (breakdown and age profile of pipelines)

South Yorkshire - 70% overdue (page 56)

Police force SAR performance tables (timeliness rate and volume of SARs received)

South Yorkshire - 48% (page 54)

Calderdale Against Corruption left an annotation ()

Thanks for that information. It just goes to show that certain police employers are routinely in breach of their legal obligations, even when they are subject to intervention from the ICO.

Interestingly, the forces which appear to have the greatest delays in providing responses are the forces which appear to be the most complained about, and the most corrupt.

It is almost as if they have something to hide, isn't it?

FOI, South Yorkshire Police

2 Attachments

Dear Calderdale against Corruption

 

Apologies for the delay in responding to your request for an Internal
Review. Please now find attached our response to your Internal Review.

 

 

 

Louise Holmes

Information Compliance Clerk

 

South Yorkshire Police

Information Compliance Unit

Performance and Governance

Unit 20

Churchill Way

Sheffield

S35 2PY

 

Website address – [1]southyorks.police.uk

 

[2]http://nextgen.app.yhrn.police/sites/SYP...

 

Email - [3][email address]

 

 

 

 

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Calderdale Against Corruption

Dear Ms Holmes,

Thank you for confirming our Internal Review has been upheld.

We notice that you state that the "FOI team consists of 2 members of staff", yet in your response to our original FOI request you state that the FOI team consists of 6 people, and, in fact, hasn't consisted of just 2 people at any point during the past 5 years.

Can you explain the discrepancy between your official responses? We are sure that 6 members of staff could quite easily manage less than 150 requests per month as we know of other organisations which provide more in-depth information and manage to handle more requests per month with less staff.

We look forward to your explanation of the discrepancy.

Yours sincerely,

Calderdale Against Corruption

FOI, South Yorkshire Police

1 Attachment

Morning
 
The Information Compliance Department  deals with both Subject Access and
Freedom of Information requests, we have two 2 staff dedicated to FOI
requests who are dealing with an average of 110 requests each month.
 
 
Louise Holmes
Information Compliance Clerk
 
South Yorkshire Police
Information Compliance Unit
Performance and Governance
Unit 20
Churchill Way
Sheffield
S35 2PY
 
Website address – [1]southyorks.police.uk
 
 
Email - [2][email address]
 
 
 
 
 

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