Chief Constable North Yorkshire Police

The complainant requested information about how victims of historical child abuse could report a crime to their police force. Having clarified the request with the complainant, North Yorkshire Police (‘NYP’) responded to all three parts of the request and provided weblinks. During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation, NYP partly revised its position and relied on section 21 of FOIA (information reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means), for some published information relevant to the request. It also now said that some of the requested information was not held. The complainant remained dissatisfied with NYP’s handling of his request, particularly in relation to whether more information was held. He also raised some procedural matters. However, as the complainant made no reference to NYP’s citing of section 21 of FOIA in his final grounds of complaint, the Commissioner has not considered its application any further. The Commissioner’s decision is that, on the balance of probabilities, NYP does not hold any further information in scope of the request than has been provided, either in response to the request or during his investigation. He finds that there was no breach of section 10 (time for compliance) or section 16 (advice and assistance). As NYP located additional information in scope that post dates its substantive response to the request, it has breached sections 1(1) (a) and (b) of FOIA. However, as this information has now been provided to the complainant during the course of the Commissioner’s investigation, he does not need to order any step. No remedial steps are required as a result of this decision.

Keywords: Misconduct in Public Office