FOI 0724-2023/24 - Operational police vehicle ages

Request:

Q1. How many of your force's currently operational vehicles are over five years old?

Q2. How many of your force's currently operational vehicles are over 10 years old?

Q3. What is your force's oldest operational vehicle?

Q4. How many currently operational vehicles does your force possess?

Q5. How many of your force's vehicles broke down for each of the years a) 2019, b) 2020, c) 2021, d) 2022, e) 2023?

Response:

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you.

I am exempting details of any vehicles used in a specialist capacity/covert manner, pursuant to section 31(1)(a) Law Enforcement. Please see the exemption explanation below.

Q1.  The number of current operational vehicles North Yorkshire Police hold over 5 years old is 233.

Q2.  The number of current operational vehicles North Yorkshire Police hold over 10 years old is 9.

Q3. The oldest operational vehicle held by North Yorkshire Police is a Landrover Defender.

Q4. The total number of current operational vehicles held by North Yorkshire Police is 338.

Q5. Please see below the number of North Yorkshire Polices vehicles recovered due to break

downs, punctures, vehicle movements and/or RTC, broken down by calender year.

Year	Total
2019	288
2020	361
2021	340
2022	452
2023	383

Exemption Explantation

Section 31 – Law Enforcement

Section 31 is a prejudice-based qualified exemption and there is a requirement to articulate the harm as well as carrying out a public interest test.  

Evidence of Harm

As you may be aware, disclosure under FOIA is a release to the public at large. Whilst not questioning the motives of the applicant, releasing any information held regarding specialist vehicles into an open forum would provide criminals/terrorists with available data of current resources.  This would be to the detriment of providing an efficient policing service and a failure in providing a duty of care to all members of the public.

Although it is seen that some policing procedures should be transparent and that the requested information may appear harmless, it is still readily available data held within the public domain that can be accessed and used by known criminals/terrorist.  As the threat from terrorism cannot be ignored, it is generally recognised that the international security landscape is increasingly complex and unpredictable. The Police are there to support the public and deliver effective law enforcement, therefore any data that would compromise policing operations would be detrimental in providing an efficient policing service and a failure in providing a duty of care to all members of the public.

Information that undermines the operational integrity of the police will adversely affect public safety and have a negative impact on both national security and law enforcement.  Therefore, it has been determined that the release of all the information requested would not be in the public interest.

Factors favouring disclosure under Section 31

Some information is already within the public domain, however not in a collective format.

Information would ensure transparency and accountability about costs and force resources.

Factors against disclosure under Section 31

It has been recorded that FOIA releases are monitored by criminals and terrorists and so releasing information held relating to specialist vehicles in a collective format would undermine and compromise law enforcement and it would also hinder any local, regional or national operations, especially where other FOis request a breakdown in data held. 

It can be argued that there are significant risks associated with providing information in relation to any aspects that can assist criminal planning, such as identifying available resources.

The Police Service would not wish to reveal resource information that would undermine the law enforcement operations and would impact on overall policing,  as more crime would be committed because criminals/terrorists would know which forces had less/more capability.  This in turn would place the public at a greater risk and a fear of crime would be realised, especially for more vulnerable areas. 

Balance test

The security of the public and the country is of paramount importance and the Police service will not divulge the resources, if to do so would place the safety of individuals at risk, due to providing freely available (single point) information under such requests and which in turn would undermine National Security or compromise law enforcement. 

Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing resources and providing assurance that the police service is appropriately prepared and effectively engaging with the threat posed by various groups or individuals, there is a very strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of police resources and operations in the highly sensitive areas such as crime prevention, public disorder and terrorism prevention.

As much as there is public interest in knowing that policing activity is appropriate and balanced this will only be overridden in exceptional circumstances. It is our opinion that for these issues the balancing test for exempting your request for planning information is not made out.

Pursuant to Section 17(1) of 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 questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.