FOI 1298-2025/26- 999 BSL service

Request:

Q1) The total number of incident responses which came through the 999 BSL service that resulted in the attendance / dispatch of police officers from your force in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025

Please provide a separate figure for each individual calendar year - e.g. 100 in 2022, 37 in 2023, etc

Q2) The total number of incident responses which came through the 999 BSL service that resulted in the attendance / dispatch of police officers from your force specifically where a BSL interpreter was also used / employed / contracted to assist at the scene of the emergency (AFTER the dispatch) (either in-person or virtually e.g. computers on wheels, facetime, etc) in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025

Again, please provide a separate figure for each individual calendar ye

Response: 

Extent of Searches to Locate Information

Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information. 

Decision

I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt.

Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is required to retrieve that information.

In order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually review all calls made within the timeframe specified to establish which, if any came through 999 BSL service and which resulted in the attendance of officers and if a BSL interpreter was used to assist. This manual process would mean manually review thousands of reports which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act. 

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, due to the information provided above I am unable to suggest how you may refine your request and still receive the information within the cost threshold.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

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.