We asked North Yorkshire Police, under a Freedom of Information Request, how many addresses they had attended in North Yorkshire following reports against social media posts.
North Yorkshire Police’s Civil Disclosure unit, declined on the basis of “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)”.
That typically means that it would cost more than £450 or 18 hours of work.
We then went to the Communications Team of North Yorkshire. The relationship that media have with comms teams within Police forces is very strained, and that is certainly true with North Yorkshire Police.
Overall this is a concerning responses from North Yorkshire Police on a number of grounds:
- That North Yorkshire Police isn’t aware of this information, given the current sensitivities around it.
- That the IT systems are in position that doesn’t allow them to accesses to easily extract this information – it raises questions on investment in IT and how robust they are.
We asked the Communications Team why North Yorkshire Police didn’t hold this information, or were aware of it already themselves.
However they decided to ignore that question and just respond to a different question, that of the original FOI.
They did provide a comment, which the comms team had just cut and pasted from the FOI, but insisted it was from a spokesperson. We asked who that spokesperson was (as there wasn’t one) and they refused to provide a name (as there wasn’t one to provide).
So for completeness “a North Yorkshire Police spokesperson” said:
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-run] 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 order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to [manually review] all crimes recorded to which police attended for the timeframe requested to establish if it was related to any social media postings and if any individual was detained. [This] would mean reading through thousands of reports, which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act.
and the FOI:
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 0104.2025-26
I write in connection with your request for information which was received by North Yorkshire Police
on 28 April 2025.
I note you seek access to the following information:
From 27 April 2024 to 28 April 2025, please could you tell me:
Q1. How many addresses North Yorkshire Police attended in relationship to social media posting
Q2. and, of those addresses, how many individuals were detained
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.
