COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE NOTE
25/04/2026
Emerging Pattern in Some Police Section 14 FOIA Responses – NPCC / Gwent / Staffordshire.
This note records a recurring structural feature observed in several recent police Freedom of Information Act section 14(1) (“vexatious”) responses, namely the presentation of request history in a manner that appears to inflate volume while withholding the particulars necessary for independent assessment.
The concern is not presently framed as an allegation of coordinated misconduct. Rather, it is that multiple authorities are exhibiting a materially similar methodology when advancing section 14 arguments.
Numerical Inflation by Counting Internal Reviews as FOI Requests
NPCC – Tribunal matter
Tribunal Matter – quantity without chronology
The issue first arose sharply in the Appellant’s present Tribunal proceedings against the NPCC.
The NPCC has relied heavily on the suggestion that a series of related requests were made concerning the NVCRP, NaVCIS, vehicle theft statistics and associated funding matters, said to be sufficient to justify section 14(1).
Yet despite repeated reliance on this history:
- no dates have been supplied,
- no subject-by-subject schedule has been produced,
- no intervals between requests have been identified,
- and no clear distinction has been drawn between substantive FoIA requests, internal reviews and ordinary follow-up correspondence.
In practical terms, the Tribunal is being asked to accept that there were ‘many similar requests‘ without being shown a transparent chronology capable of independent assessment.
That matters because
- numbers, without context, create their own impression.
- a bare recital of references can suggest relentless bombardment.
- a dated chronology may reveal a far smaller number of discrete requests spread over months.
The NPCC’s presentation supplies the former impression while withholding the latter detail.
Gwent Police – the Commissioner was not persuaded
This concern is not speculative. In Decision Notice IC-355444-P4T3, the Information Commissioner considered Gwent Police’s reliance on overlapping and repeated requests to support section 14.
The Commissioner rejected the portrayal.
Importantly, she recorded that:
- “the actual numbers of FOI requests are minimal relating to three separate requests over the seven month period.”
She further noted that Gwent Police had failed to provide supporting information relevant to its assertions – even when asked to do so.
In other words, the authority’s depiction of repeated burden was broader than the evidence justified.
This is a significant marker – the Commissioner has already found one police authority wanting where the request volume was overstated.
Staffordshire Police – not really 7 requests
A more recent (17/04/2026) Staffordshire Police Internal Review provides perhaps the clearest public illustration. In refusing a request under section 14, Staffordshire state:
- “Since 10th May 2025, 7 FOI request have been submitted…”
That sounds, on first reading, like a substantial and repetitive campaign. But the references listed by Staffordshire are:
21907
21971
21986 IR of 21907
22046 IR of 21971
22736
22742
22760 IR of 22742
Three of the seven cited references are not fresh FOIA requests at all. They are Internal Reviews.
The practical picture therefore becomes:
- 4 substantive FOI requests – in almost a year.
- 3 Internal Reviews
- presented collectively as “7 FOI requests”
That may sound like a technical drafting point, but the optics are materially altered.
- “7 requests” suggests persistence and pressure.
- “4 requests over approximately 11 months, with statutory internal reviews” suggests something rather different.
Yet no explanation is offered for the conflation.
More than FOI – blending everything into “bombardment”
Staffordshire goes further. Having listed the seven references, the response then adds:
- four Right of Access requests, and
- Professional Standards complaint activity,
before concluding that there has been:
- “constant bombardment of requests and complaints…”
This is revealing.
A Freedom of Information request, an Internal Review, a Subject Access or Right of Access request, and a complaint are not interchangeable administrative nuisances. They are separate statutory or procedural routes serving different legal purposes.
Yet once blended together, they create one enlarged numerical story:
- the troublesome applicant who is everywhere.
Whether each route was lawfully used becomes secondary to the cumulative impression.
Staffs online response can be read here.
Essex Police – references supplied, but the overlap left unexplained
A further recent example arises from Essex Police’s refusal of FOI 23526.
The May 2026 request sought recorded information concerning Essex Police’s own previous statements about third-party subject access requests in insurance matters. In particular, it sought material relating to:
- third-party SAR templates and standard wording;
- internal guidance, policy or training material;
- a meeting Essex Police had previously said was held with the Insurance team;
- recorded legal rationale concerning sections 53 and 184 of the Data Protection Act 2018; and
- the creation or revision of Essex Police’s non-ABI insurance disclosure process.
Essex Police refused the request under both section 14(1) and section 14(2) FoIA. In support of that refusal, Essex Police listed a number of earlier FOI references, divided into “directly related” and “indirectly related” requests:
Directly related:
- FOI 21420, received 30/01/2025, including an internal review and subsequent ICO decision notice;
- FOI 21816, received 15/04/2026, including an internal review;
- FOI 21817, received 15/04/2026;
- FOI 22447, received 13/08/2025.
Indirectly related:
- FOI 21929, received 12/05/2025, including an internal review and ICO complaint awaiting outcome;
- FOI 22363, received 13/08/2025.
Aside of many of the above being over a year earlier, this appears, again, to demonstrate the same structural issue.
Reference numbers are supplied. Dates are supplied. But the substance is missing.
Essex Police did not explain:
- the subject matter of each previous request;
- which parts of FOI 23526 were said to overlap with which earlier request;
- whether the earlier requests had been complied with, refused, reviewed or appealed;
- why the cited requests rendered the present request vexatious;
- or, for the purposes of section 14(2), which previous request was said to be identical or substantially similar.
That last point is particularly important.
Section 14(2) is not a general “related correspondence” provision. It applies where a request is identical or substantially similar to a previous request and a reasonable interval has not elapsed. Yet Essex Police’s review outcome stated only that “elements” of the request overlapped with earlier requests, particularly in respect of third-party SAR processes, internal guidance and templates, and legal rationale.
That is not the same as identifying the earlier request said to be repeated.
The result is a circular position. Essex Police relies on previous requests to justify refusing the present request, while withholding the very explanation needed to assess whether those previous requests are genuinely relevant.
The burden reasoning is also notable. Essex Police stated that compliance would require searches across multiple departments and systems, and extensive work to locate, retrieve, collate, review and redact large volumes of information. Yet no estimate of staff time, cost, search burden, volume of material, systems or departments was provided.
Reall? Would the subject of the request about police disclosures be handled elsewhere than in the disclosure department?
That type of reasoning resembles a section 12 cost/burden argument, but section 12 was not relied upon. Nor does the response appear to explain why advice and assistance under section 16 was not offered, despite suggested narrowing options such as:
- current templates only;
- the September 2023 meeting records only;
- section 184 guidance only; or
- A98b / non-ABI process material only.
The Essex example therefore adds a further dimension to the emerging pattern.
It is not simply that request history is being relied upon. It is that the history is presented in a way that creates an impression of repeated or overlapping activity, while the particulars necessary to test that impression remain absent.
In Essex, the position is especially striking because the request arose from Essex Police’s own earlier statements. Those statements referred to third-party SAR handling, section 53 DPA 2018, section 184 DPA 2018, and a meeting with the Insurance team to review templates and processes. The request sought the recorded information behind those statements.
That context matters.
Where further requests are prompted by an authority’s own unclear or unexplained assertions, it is difficult to characterise the resulting enquiries as inherently vexatious without first explaining the authority’s own role in creating the need for clarification.
The Essex refusal therefore sits alongside the NPCC, Gwent and Staffordshire examples as another instance where section 14 appears to be supported by broad assertions of burden, overlap and history, but without the evidential schedule needed for proper independent assessment.
There is an important distinction here.
It is not disputed that previous requests were made to Essex Police concerning section 184 DPA 2018. But that does not, of itself, make later requests repetitive or vexatious.
The reason section 184 became a repeated point of enquiry is that Essex Police itself raised it in the context of third-party subject access requests and insurance disclosure. Essex Police had also indicated that the issue of “right of access” had been raised with, or involved exchanges concerning, bodies including the ICO, the NPCC and “others” in the insurance or adjusting sector. This is important; where an authority introduces a serious legal issue, particularly one involving a criminal offence provision, and refers to wider exchanges or discussions, it is plainly legitimate to ask for the recorded information behind those assertions.
The difficulty is that subsequent requests for those exchanges and related material did not produce the supporting records. The position appears, in substance, to have become: Essex Police relied on the existence of discussions, exchanges or concerns to justify its stance, but when asked for the recorded material underpinning that stance, the information was not held.
That history does not weaken the serious purpose of the present request. It strengthens it.
It explains why further clarification was sought, why the issue remained unresolved, and why a bare list of previous reference numbers does not adequately support section 14. The chronology is not evidence of obsessive repetition; it is evidence of an unresolved issue created, or at least materially contributed to, by Essex Police’s own earlier statements.
In that context, the mere fact that section 184 had been the subject of earlier requests is not enough. The relevant question is whether Essex Police has ever provided the recorded basis for the position it advanced.
The Essex example is important not merely because section 14 was invoked, but because the refusal illustrates the very difficulty this note identifies.
A list of earlier references was provided, but the explanatory substance was not. Essex Police did not identify which earlier request was said to be identical or substantially similar, which elements of the present request overlapped, or why the time elapsed was insufficient. Nor was any measurable burden evidence provided.
The applicant is therefore left in a circular position: previous requests are relied upon as justification for refusal, but the information needed to test that reliance is not supplied
Essex and the ICO
Following Essex Police’s internal review, a complaint has been submitted to the Information Commissioner. The complaint is published here because it illustrates the same concern identified in this note: section 14 being relied upon through broad assertions of burden, overlap and request history, without the particulars needed to test the refusal.
The complaint should not be read as an ICO finding. It is the applicant’s submission and the matter remains for the Commissioner to consider.
The missing information in all examples
Across the NPCC, Gwent, Staffordshire & Essex examples, the same omissions repeatedly appear:
- no clear dates,
- no subject descriptions,
- no explanation of overlap,
- no breakdown of what is a fresh request and what is review-stage correspondence,
- little or no concrete evidence of actual retrieval burden.
Instead, the decision-maker often presents:
a list of references + a broad statement of similarity = a section 14 burden narrative.
This makes independent testing difficult.
The requester is left challenging an impression, rather than a chronology.
A pattern, not yet a proven policy
At this stage it would be wrong to leap to accusations of central coordination. There is, as yet, no proof that these responses stem from a single author, a common template, or direct National Police Chiefs’ Council instruction. But the structural resemblance is becoming difficult to ignore.
Across separate authorities, one sees:
- quantity asserted
- details withheld
- administrative remedies blended together
- the requester presented as inherently burdensome
Whether this reflects:
- shared training,
- template language,
- informal advice,
- or simply the spread of a convenient handling style,
is not yet known. What can be said safely is this:
- section 14 is increasingly being supported by arithmetic and optics in circumstances where the chronology itself remains opaque.
Why this matters
Section 14 exists to protect public authorities from abuse. It does not exist to allow broad-brush numerical narratives to replace transparent evidential schedules.
If Internal Reviews are being counted as FOI requests, if complaints and access requests are being folded into one “bombardment” story, and if dates and subject matter are omitted, then a requester – and indeed the Commissioner or Tribunal – may be judging burden by impression rather than fact.
That should concern anyone interested in transparency. Because once “many requests” becomes an elastic phrase, section 14 becomes far easier to invoke and far harder to challenge.
Have you encountered this conduct?
This article records three examples presently identified. It may be a coincidence, an emerging convention.
Either way, the issue warrants wider scrutiny.
Have you encountered:
- police FOIA refusals listing reference numbers without dates,
- Internal Reviews counted as FOI request volume,
- Subject Access requests or complaints blended into section 14 burden,
- or broad assertions of “many similar requests” unsupported by particulars,
Examples are welcome: If you have encountered similar police Freedom of Information responses, particularly where Internal Reviews or other statutory requests have been counted toward section 14 burden, please get in touch.
