Police officer sick days and mental health support 196/2024
FOI Reference: 196/2024
Request:
I would like to request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act:
1) The total number of sick days taken by police officers for the period 01/1/2022 – 31/12/2022.
2) The total number of sick days taken by the police officers for the period 01/1/2022 – 31/12/2022 where mental health was a contributing factor to said absence.
3) A list of mental health / psychological conditions that were cited as reasons for absence if possible.
4) A breakdown of Q1 + Q2 by gender; age; rank.
5) A list of mental health support services available to policer officers.
6) A breakdown of police officers by gender; age; rank of the police officers who accessed these support services.
Response:
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information you have requested. However we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12(1) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.
Section 12 (1) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit
Section 12(1) states: “…Section 1 (1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”
The cost of providing you with the information requested in respect of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum of 1235.5 hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to Question 3 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that figures are determined by how the absences have been categorised when recorded on the system initially. We have been made aware that absences may have been initially categorised differently, for example under the Miscellaneous but is later known to develop into stress related, therefore in order to respond to the specific questions raised, each psychological record would need to be reviewed and assessed against the criteria requested. Therefore an individual interrogation of all records would be required, it has been established that there are a total of 7413 relevant records that would require review. The relevant time estimates are detailed below:
2022- 7413 sick days categorised as psychological disorders x 10minutes per record = 1,235.5 hours.
Time estimate for Question 3- 1,235.5 hours
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact. You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
Although excess cost removed the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.
Question 1-
In 2022 a total of 19779 sick days for police officers were recorded.
Question 2 –
In 2022 a total of 7413 sick days were categorised as relating to psychological disorders.
Question 4-
An answer to Question 4 was not retrieved before it was realised Q3 would take the response over time, but it should be noted that this information is not easily retrievable and if resubmitted would likely incur a Section 12(1) exemption response, as it would likely take more than 18 hours to retrieve this information also, because it would require a manual review of each file to obtain the requested data.
Question 5-
A list of mental health support services available to policer officers:
In House Counselling service
EAP service by Vivup 24 hour service
Flint House psychological services
GP – primary care
NHS Crisis Team.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 13/03/2024)