FOI 0024-2025/26- Threat, risk and harm

Request:

Clarification

To clarify, my primary focus is on the area of Public Protection, which I define as policing activities related to interpersonal offences, including, but not limited to, violent and sexual offences.

Regarding the policing duty of Public Protection, I am seeking the following:

Q1. To understand how your force interprets these terms and whether your force has developed its own working definitions of Threat, Harm, and Risk, either as part of force-specific guidance or operational doctrine.

Q2. In relation to the operational aspect of my request, I would like to understand how your force applies its definition or understanding of Threat, Harm, and Risk in practice. Specifically, are there models, frameworks, procedures, or tools - such as, but not limited to, THRIVE, DASH, or any force-specific approaches - that incorporate these concepts into day-to-day policing activities?

Q3. Regarding the third aspect of my request, I would be grateful if you could confirm whether your force holds any written or formal resources, such as training materials, internal guidance documents, or policy papers, that explain how Threat, Harm, and Risk are understood and applied at both the operational and strategic levels. Could you outline the training officers receive, both initially and ongoing, in relation to Threat, Harm, and Risk, and how these concepts are addressed within relevant frameworks, tools, and guidelines? I am particularly interested in understanding how tools like HART, DASH, or any other relevant tools, policies, and frameworks are integrated into training or operational procedures, and how this information is communicated to officers. 

Original request

Q1. Conceptualisation: How does your force define and conceptualise Threat, Harm and Risk?

Q2. Operationalisation: What procedures, frameworks, or tools are used to apply Threat, Harm and Risk in operational practice (e.g., DASH, THRIVE)?

Q3. Understanding: Are there specific training materials, internal policies, or documents that describe how Threat, Harm and Risk are understood at both operational and strategic levels?

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.

As Threat Harm and Risk is covered throughout initial training for student officers and is a thread that is covered in many different sessions e.g. safeguarding, response policing etc. In order to retrieve the requested information for Q3, it would be necessary to manually review each session to be able to establish and extract training materials, resources and guidance documents, 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, we may be able to provide some information for part 1 and 2 of your request if you resubmit and omit part 3.  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.