FOI 1312-2025/26- Sickpay

Request:

Please could you provide the following information for the financial years 2004–2005 and 2005–2006 (to date) within your police force:

Q1. The number of police officers who were reduced to half pay following six months’ absence from work.

Q2. The number of requests made for full pay to be maintained on the basis that the illness or injury was linked to an injury sustained on duty.

Q3. Of those requests, the number that were successful in retaining full pay.

If possible, I would be grateful if the information could be provided separately for each financial year.

If any part of this request is unclear or would exceed the appropriate cost limit, please advise and I would be happy to refine the request accordingly.

I would prefer to receive the information in electronic format if available.

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(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, it would be necessary to manually review each officer’s personnel file and pay each month over the timeframe specified to establish which, if any is relevant to the request . This manual process 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, we may be able to provide some information if the timeframe is significantly reduced.  Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the public authorities right to cite exemptions if relevant.  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.