FOI RSO Requirements (0473-2022/23)
Request
1. How many sex offenders did your force have registered living in the force area in each of the past three financial years?
2. Of those sex offenders who were required to notify the police force of all foreign travel and their return to the UK, how many did inform your force of all foreign travel and their return to the UK and how many also failed to do so, in each of the past three financial years?
3. How many sex offenders has your force recorded as having failed to return to the UK in each of the past three financial years?
4. How many sex offenders have notified the force when they were living in a household with a child under the age of 18 and how many failed to do so, in each of the past three financial years?
5. How many sex offenders have made a notification to your force that they have changed their identity through name change in each of the past three financial years and how many did the force discover retrospectively had changed their identity through name change without first informing the force in each of the past three financial years?
6. How many offences have been committed by sex offenders within your police force area of failure to comply with the notification requirement in each of the past three financial years?
7. How many registered sex offenders failed to make annual contact with police stations within your police force area in each of the past three financial years (please provide the number of sex offenders failing to make annual contact and the number of failures for each financial year)?
8. How long does it take for a registered sex offender to be classed as “missing” from your police force area?
9. How many registered sex offenders went missing from your police force area in each of the past three financial years?
Please provide these data in an .xlsx/.xls/.csv file format so I am capable to re-use them as per Section 11 of FoI.
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 the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.
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.
However, I have today decided to disclose the located information to you.
Q1. The number of registered sex offenders within North Yorkshire Police force area changes on a daily basis. The following figures are provided on a specific day count only.
31 March 2020 – 875
31 March 2021 – 909
31 March 2022 – 893
Q6. The number of offences committed by registered sex offenders within North Yorkshire Police force area of failure to comply with the notification requirement in each of the past three financial years.
2019/2020 – 21
2020/2021 – 18
2021/2022 – 31
Q8. There is no definitive answer to this question. If a registered sex offender fails to comply with their requirements and is reported missing they are clasee as such. If an offender leaves to UK without notifying the relevant authorities they are classed as wanted.
Q9. The number of registered sex offenders within North Yorkshire Police force area who went missing.
2019/2020 – 2
2020/2021 – 2
2021/2022 – 2
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 order to retrieve the requested information for Q2, 3, 4, 5, & 7, it would be necessary to manually review all offender files within the dates requested. This would involve reading over 1200 files, which 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). 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.