FOI Neurodiverse Police Officers (0338-2022/23)

Request

I am conducting research into the experiences of police officers with neurodiverse conditions such as Autism, Aspergers, ADHD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.

I would be grateful if you could supply me with the following information (if possible)

Q1)         What is the current police officer establishment of your force?

Q2)         How many police officers in your force have a diagnosis of one or more of the conditions listed above?

Q3)         How many police officers are undergoing assessment for one of these conditions?

Q4)         Does your force have a specific policy on support for neurodivergent staff?

Q5)         If there is a policy, please supply me with a copy.

Response

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police. I can confirm that some of the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose some of the located information to you.

Q1)         What is the current police officer establishment of your force?

I am exempting providing a response to this question citing S21 of the Freedom Of Information Act (Information accessible by other means) as the information you have requested is published online and freely available to the wider public. To assist you I have appended the relevant link below.

Police workforce open data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please see the exemption explanations at the end of this letter for the rationale applied.

Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice in response to Q1 only your request.

Q2)         How many police officers in your force have a diagnosis of one or more of the conditions listed above?

North Yorkshire Police currently only record information relating to dyslexia, in which we hold 7 records.

Q3)         How many police officers are undergoing assessment for one of these conditions?

No information held in response to this part of your question.

Q4)         Does your force have a specific policy on support for neurodivergent staff?

North Yorkshire Police do not currently have a policy specific to support for neurodivergent staff, but do have a internal neurodiversity network that provides advice and guidance for officers and staff where needed.

Q5)         If there is a policy, please supply me with a copy.

No information held in respect of this part of your request.

Exemption Explanations.

Section 17 of the Act requires North Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. Please see the relevant exemption headers below for further information.

Section 21 – Information Reasonably Accessible to the Applicant by Other Means

This exemption applies as the requested information has been deemed already reasonably accessible by other means. Please refer to the following for relevant information;

Section 21(1) is an absolute class-based exemption. This means that if the requested information is held by the public authority, and it is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means, it is not subject to the public interest test.

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.