A Freedom of Information request submitted to Staffordshire Police in July 2025 has raised a broader procedural question about how requests are handled over time.
The request was initially refused under section 14 (vexatious), maintained at internal review. Months later the response was revised, following ICO involvement, to a position that the information is ‘not held’.
Subsequent clarification has confirmed that no searches were conducted at the time of the original request and that it is now unknown whether the requested information ever existed or was deleted.
This raises an important question:
- Can a public authority rely on “not held” where it has not established whether the information was held at the time of the request?
The matter is currently under consideration by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
For a fuller explanation of the issues raised, see the CarCrimeUK article here.