FOI Police Officer Mental Health (0268-2024/25)
Original Request (0195.2024-25)
Q1. What is the total number of sick days taken off by police officers due to mental health reasons, e.g. anxiety, stress, depression or other psychiatric illness. I would like this information to be provided for each of the last five calendar years as follows: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.
Revised Request (0268.2024-25)
Q1. If you are unable to break down the figures by calendar year, are you able to break them down by any other period of time (e.g. financial years)? I'm interested in seeing what the trend over time is
Original Request (0195.2024-25)
Q2. Please could you also provide the proportion of total sick days taken off due to mental health reasons in each of those years (e.g. 40%).
Revised Request (0268.2024-25)
Q2. Also, if you do not record the percentage of sick days taken for mental health / psychological reasons, could you please also provide the total number of sick days taken in each period (for any reason, including but not limited to mental health / psychological)?
Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information
To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police.
Decision
Q1. Whilst this information is held, it is not held in the format requested. The reason for this is because of the way the data is extracted and the fact that absences can span more than one calendar/financial year, for example, an absence may begin on 1 December 2023 and end on 1 February 2024 (spanning two calendar years). Similarly, there may be long term sickness absences which span multiple years and as a result, this would not provide an accurate reflection of sickness absences.
Q2. 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).
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 undertake a manual review of all sickness absences and a manual count of sick days, to exclude non working days, which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act.
Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the 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). If you wish to refine your request to include the number of absences, not limited to mental health or psychological reasons, this could be provided. If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.
Please note that whilst considering your request it has come to my attention that there was an error in our response to your request 0195.2024-25. I can confirm that the data provided in response to Question 1 is representative of the number of absences and not the number of days. As stated above, it is not possible within the time limit under the Act to provide the number of days absence. Please accept our apologies for this error.
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.