Dear Patricia Betty

Re your request (reference number above):

1. Has there been any correspondence of any kind in the last three years
relating to trail hunting between this police force and the Countryside
Alliance, Master of Foxhounds Association or the Hunting Office?

2. Has this police force, in the last 3 years, offered any advice to local
fox hunts on how to avoid being accused of illegal hunting by hunt
monitors and saboteurs.

3. If advice has been given in the last 3 years to local fox hunters, the
Countryside Alliance or Master of Fox Hounds Association, what was the
advice?

Please could you clarify the following point(s): -

South Yorkshire Police has received a number of similar requests to yours
in the past. All such requests and responses are published on the Force
Disclosure Log, which can be found on the South Yorkshire Police website
at: -

[1]https://www.southyorkshire.police.uk/fin...

You may find that research of the Log may be worthwhile prior to
submitting future requests as this may well result in the information
being available immediately rather than any delay resulting from the
process of responding to a request under the Act. In particular, we would
draw your attention to the following entries: -

[2]https://www.southyorkshire.police.uk/fin...

[3]https://www.southyorkshire.police.uk/fin...

The below links may also be useful for your research:

[4]https://www.southyorkshire.police.uk/fin...

Further-

Q1 - Your request asks for “correspondence” , potentially to check the
entire force for letters/emails/phone calls/memos that may have  been
received into the force would require contacting each district and
department/unit  to see if they have had involvement with the above
associations in any capacity.  This would more than likely exceed the 18hr
rule.  Are you able to refine this question and advise if there is a
specific department or person may be involved and receive this type of
correspondence?  Are the links above useful in narrowing this down?

It would be helpful if you could review the above entries and compare the
responses to your particular requirement for information. We appreciate
that people have different reasons for requesting information and those
differences often lead to slight but important variations in the wording
of requests. We are concerned to avoid misinterpreting these subtle
variations and issuing an unnecessary or erroneous refusal to release
information under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act
(Information available to the applicant by other means). We also
understand that information changes with the passage of time and previous
responses may not always cover the date or time parameters of your
request.

If our previous responses do not completely satisfy your requirements it
would be appreciated if you could refine your request in order to elicit
that information not already published on our website. So, for instance,
where your requirement involves information from particular date
parameters, and we have only released information for part of that time
frame, it would be helpful if you could refine your request so as to
prompt the release of information relating to the dates not already
published.

As a general point concerning the setting of date parameters: The use of
terms such as “for the last year” or “over the last five years” is often
not precise enough to ensure the accurate location, retrieval and
extraction of information (unfortunately our computers simply do not have
the linguistic ability to interpret these phrases!). The use of terms such
as ‘financial year’ or ‘calendar year’ is more helpful, but the use of
exact dates between, or from which information is required is most likely
to achieve accurate results. 

Please forward your clarification to South Yorkshire Police as this
request will be ‘stopped’ on our database until this has been received.

Once we have received clarification, your request be considered and you
will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days
as defined by the Act, subject to the information not being exempt or
containing a reference to a third party. In some circumstances South
Yorkshire Police may be unable to achieve this deadline. If this is likely
you will be informed and given a revised time-scale at the earliest
opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information you request. If this is the case you will be informed and
the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment
from you. If you choose not to make a payment then your request will
remain unanswered.

Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to
another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest
possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.

Yours sincerely

Louise Holmes

Information Compliance Clerk

South Yorkshire Police

Information Compliance Unit

Performance and Governance

Unit 20

Churchill Way

Sheffield

S35 2PY

Website address – [5]southyorks.police.uk

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

Email - [7][email address]

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References

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1. https://www.southyorkshire.police.uk/fin...
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5. http://www.southyorkshire.police.uk/
7. mailto:[email address]