FOI Public Order Operations (0408-2024/25)

Request
Q1. Any documents you hold, or notes of meetings or discussions, or audio or video recordings, that describe your approach or discussions about your approach to naming or describing in public the suspects and perpetrators of crime.

Q2. Any documents you hold, or notes of meetings or discussions, or audio or video recordings, that describe your approach or discussions about your approach to consulting community leaders and organisations prior to anticipated public order operations.

Clarification
In accordance with your clarification, I note that you require documents covering the 14 August 2021 to 14 August 2024.  You also clarified that your request relates to overall policy across different crime types, events, and community leaders but to refine the requirements you suggested directing Question 1 to our Communications Department and Question 2 to our Operations Department.

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 respect of Question 1, these matters have been the subject of meetings/discussions/training over many years, both nationally and locally, and in order to provide this information, a manual review of all meeting notes/minutes would be required to locate and retrieve the information relevant to your request,  which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act. 

In respect of Question 2, a manual review of all folders on public order operations would be required to locate and retrieve the information relevant to your request, which would again 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. 

Although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded.  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.

In response to Question 1 we can provide the following information:

In terms of naming suspects, we follow the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice (APP) which is here: Media relations | College of Policing. 

In  addition, with regard to descriptions of suspects, we take guidance from our Positive Action Team in terms of any protected characteristics.

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.