Whilst searching for the figures for the financial year 2008-2009 it was discovered that the information you have requested is not easily retrievable. To find out how many officers have this information on their record would involve manually searching through every personnel file for around 3,000 officers. At an estimate of 15 minutes to search through every personnel file (although it can vary depending on the size of the file) it would total 750 hours of work.

The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 provide that the cost limit for non central government public authorities is £450. This must be calculated at the rate of £25 per hour, providing an effective time limit of 18 hours.

However, in accordance with Section 16 of the Act, 'Duty to Assistant Applicants', I can release the information that was collected before it was released that the time limit would be exceeded. At the beginning of the financial year of 2009-2010, a new system was introduced where we record this information on a spreadsheet. As a result, the information was easily retrievable within the time limit.