FOI 0019-2025/26 Medically Retired Officers

Request
Q1. The number of officers who were medically retired from your police force due to a physical disability or illness occurring whilst in service (service and non-service attributable) between 1965 and FY 2007/8, after which we are able to obtain the information from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-open-data-tables.

Please can you then provide the following data for at least the last 20 calendar years (broken down annually). If you are unable to provide it this far back, please provide it as far back as your records do go and state this: 

Q2. The number of police officers claiming an Injury On Duty Award, split by year and banding of award. If possible, please provide details regarding the physical injuries or illnesses or categories within which they were claimed for.

Q3. The number of serving police officers registered as having a disability under the Equality Act 2010, split by year (whether as a result of their service in the police force or otherwise, following the person’s departure/retirement). Please also provide details regarding the number of personnel among those registered as physically disabled who have reported that their disability/condition limits their day-to-day activities. 

Q4. The number of serving and retired officers who have reported to have/registered as having the following physical disabilities and illnesses, whether occurring whilst in service (service or nonservice attributable), or following the person’s departure/retirement from the police service. If you do not hold data against these specific conditions, please break them down into the relevant illnesses/disabilities/categories which you are able to:

• Acquired Brain Injury
• Amputees
• Arthritis
• Chronic back/neck problems
• Degenerative diseases that affect mobility
• Ehler Danlos Syndrome
• MND
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Parkinson’s Disease
• Spinal Cord Injuries

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.

In order to retrieve the requested information to answer Question 1 and 2, preceding 2007/8, it would be necessary to retrieve and review paper records. It is not known to what date these records are held, however, to undertake this exercise would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act.  In relation to Question 4, whilst Police Officers may self-declare a disability, they are not required to provide details of their disability at the point of declaration. As such, a manual review of systems and paper records would be required to determine the number of officers with the conditions listed above (if at all recorded). Again, this would exceed the time limit 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). I may be able to provide some information in relation to Question 3, however, please note that an annual breakdown of this data is not held. If you wish to revise and resubmit your request 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.