FOI 0534-2024/25- Anti-social behaviour

Request:

1) I would like to know how many reports there have been - in the last 6 months - of anti social behaviour involving quad bikes or bikes.

2) I would also like to know how many times police officers have been unable to pursue quad bikes and bikes because they haven’t got the correct risk assessment to do so. By this I mean - the risk assessment is deemed too high. Also in the past 6 months.

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. In relation to question 2, this type of information is not held in an extractable format this type of information, if held, would be held in a free text field. Therefore, to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually read all incidents in the last 6 months which suggest pursuing, to determine if they involved a quad bike/bike and if a risk assessment was mentioned. This 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). A refinement suggestion we would advise would be to remove questions 2 and we may be able to provide statistical figures for question 1. 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.