17 March 2014 – FOI Response: 1029.2013-14 – Freedom of information request
Request
- Please find attached a Freedom of Information request for North Yorkshire Police and a separate request to the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire. The two requests have been sent simultaneously as you may wish to confer as to who is best placed to provide some of the information requested.
All information should be provided to me by email, (word, pdf or excel format).
- Please provide a copy of all internal communications within North Yorkshire Police relating to the appointment of an Interim Head of Communications or Head of Communications between December 1 2013 and February 28 2014.
- Please provide a copy of all internal communications within the OPCC for North Yorkshire relating to the appointment of an Interim Head of Communications or Head of Communications between December 1 2013 and February 28 2014.
- Please provide a copy of all communications between officers and staff acting on behalf of North Yorkshire Police and officers and staff acting on behalf of the OPCC for North Yorkshire relating to either recruitment process. (Where information or effort to collate would be duplicated, e.g. an exchange of emails held within both organisations, I am content to receive a single version of such information on behalf of both bodies. Please state which organisation has compiled the information).
- Please provide a copy of communications between North Yorkshire Police and/or OPCC and any external organisation or individual regarding the appointment process for an Interim Head of Communications or Head of Communications. This includes any instructions to advertise or readvertise vacancies and any advice sought from consultants or agencies or regarding either post.
Copies of any specific communications between the force and individual applicants is not requested. However, copies of any general communications sent to all applicants for either post is requested. - Please state how many people applied for each post. Where the closing date was extended, please state how may applied within the original date and how many after.
- Please say how many people were short listed for each post and how many were interviewed.
- Please provide a copy of the short listing criteria applied for each post and the names and positions of those involved in short listing.
- Please confirm the current position regarding selection/offer/appointment for each post.
Response
Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information
To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire.
I have supplied the following link to published information, relative to your request. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request, as explained below.
Decision
I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(2) as the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format.
Section 12(2) applies to your request as the cost of determining whether or not the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire holds information relevant to your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
To provide you with an accurate response to your request would require us to potentially read through all the emails in 10 mailboxes to identify all those relevant to your request. We have estimated there will be in excess of forty six thousand emails for the time period and allowing an average of 2 minutes to read each one would take in excess of 1,500 hours. As such the cost of providing you with the 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.
Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act (the Act) this letter acts as a Refusal Notice in response to your request.
Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your request should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.
Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regard to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate level’ (time/cost limit). However, for the reasons explained above, I am unable to suggest how your request may be refined and still receive information for a reasonable period of time. However, if you wish to discuss this please contact me quoting the reference number above.
Complaint Rights
Your attention is drawn to the attached sheet which details your right of complaint.