FOI Orgreave Scandal (1206-2023/24)

Request

Just confirming that NYP has never had / or no longer has a copy of the operational order 18.6.84 Orgreave?

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(2) applies to your request as the cost of determining whether or not North Yorkshire Police hold information relevant to your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Due to the historical nature of the operation, in order to ascertain whether North Yorkshire Police hold any information in relation to this specific Operational Order, and any other relevant documents, it would be necessary to manually review all files held from around this time to date, including any archived computerised data; pocket notebooks; paper files held on any North Yorkshire Police site; paper files held in archived off-site storage units etc. Therefore, determining whether North Yorkshire Police hold any information would far exceed the cost threshold 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.