Freedom of Information: South Yorkshire Police fail to answer sexual conduct request within Act's timeframe

On January 12, 2023, The Star submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act over internal complaints regarding sexual harassment and sexual assault made to the force’s Human Resources department. The Star can confirm it still has not received the request back.

The Freedom of Information Act outlines requests should be responded to within 20 working days of the request being received. At the time of publication, it has been 63 working days since South Yorkshire Police confirmed receipt of the request.

When approached for a comment a South Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “We recognise our current response times for Freedom of Information requests do not meet regulatory requirements and we are working hard to put this right. We have sought resources from other areas of the force to assist in reducing the backlog, and we have new members of staff completing their training in order to strengthen the existing team and improve our service.

“We have informed the Information Commissioner’s Office of our position and continually update them on our progress.”

The request asked for two pieces of information, which were as follows:

• "How many internal reports of workplace sexual harassment or sexual assault have been made to SYP's HR departments (or equivalent) against members of South Yorkshire Police staff by other members of staff since January 2018?”
• “A list of ways these reports have been resolved and how many times each resolution has been used.”

Upon sending the request, The Star received an automatic response confirming receipt. It said: “Unfortunately, due to current staffing issues, you may experience some delay with the response to your request. Please be assured we are working hard to try and resolve this as soon as possible, as we take your rights and our duty under the FOI Act very seriously.

"In the meantime please accept our apology, we will do our best to meet the prescribed timescales and respond as soon as possible.”

Two subsequent follow ups were sent after the 20 working day period had passed regarding a response to the request, both of them only received the same automatic response in reply.