FOI 1267-2024/25 Tell Mama Bulletins

Request
The anti-Muslim hate monitoring service Tell Mama has data sharing agreements with various police forces and provides them with regular, I believe they are quarterly, bulletins on anti-muslim hate crimes and incidents.

Please can you provide me with: 

Q1. A copy of all quarterly* bulletins on anti-muslim hate crimes and incident received by your police force from Tell Mama in the calendar year 2024?

(Please note, I've said quarterly bulletins because, as far as I'm aware, this is how regularly they provide bulletins on anti-muslim hate crime and incidents to police forces. However, please provide all such bulletins provided in 2024 even if they were provided over a different time frame, such as once or twice during the year) 

I understand that some information within these bulletins may be considered sensitive. However, I am not requesting any personal data or operationally sensitive details that would engage exemptions under Section 40 (personal data) or Section 31 (law enforcement). If necessary, I am happy to receive redacted versions of the bulletins to ensure compliance with FOIA exemptions.

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information
To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within 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.

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.

As information is not held separately, in order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to request that all staff/officers across the force undertake a manual review of their emails to determine whether any ‘bulletins’ or communication of this nature have been received from ‘Tell Mama’ in the specified timeframe. This 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.

As a gesture of goodwill, and in accordance with my duty to advise and assist pursuant to Section 16 of the Act, I can however confirm that enquiries have been made of relevant staff in the Hate Crime Team who have confirmed that no such bulletins have been received since the commencement of their role in May 2024.

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.