June 09, 2025 | Operational Policing, Investigations and Events , Investigations and Operations
Request Number: FOI/14423
Category: Policing Themes, Operations and Investigations - Investigations and Operations
Subject: OPERATION BEGRAIN
Request and Answer:
Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) We can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) does hold the information you have requested however it is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We have explained to you below that when PSNI estimates whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if certain conditions are met. In this case those conditions are met and complying with all of your requests would in our estimation exceed that appropriate limit set out in Regulation. We have explained this further below but also we followed the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance ‘Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit’ in relation to this request, which also provides further detail on the application of Section 12 (1) of the FOIA. This guidance is available on the ICO website at the following link:
Request 1
How many total hours have been spent working by PSNI personnel on Operation Begrain since it began in 2023?
Request 2
How many officers and other personnel are at present working on Operation Begrain?
Request 3
What is the highest number of officers and other personnel engaged on Op. Begrain at any time?
Request 4
What is the lowest number of officers and other personnel engaged on Op. Begrain at any time?
Answer
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Police Service of Northern Ireland, when refusing to provide such information (because the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit) to provide you the applicant with a notice which states that fact.
It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 12 of FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. The estimate must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case. The ‘appropriate limit’ is currently £600 for central government and £450 for all other public authorities including PSNI. The relevant Regulations which define the appropriate limit for section 12 purposes are The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulation 2004 SI 2004 No 3244. These are known as the ‘Fees Regulations’ for brevity.
Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations states that a public authority can take into account the costs it reasonably expects to incur in carrying out the following permitted activities in complying with the request:
(i) determining whether the information is held;
(ii) locating the information, or a document containing it;
(iii) retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
(iv) extracting the information from a document containing it.
Under those regulations PSNI can calculate the time spent on each of these permitted activities at £25 per hour (thus if the activity(s) takes more than 18 hours PSNI will be in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’).
When a public authority is estimating whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if the conditions laid out in Regulation 5 of the Fees Regulations can be satisfied. Those conditions require the requests to be:
- made by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
- made for the same or similar information; and
- received by the public authority within any period of 60 consecutive working days.
Regulation 5(2) of the Fees Regulations requires that the requests which are to be aggregated relate “to any extent” to the same or similar information. This is quite a wide test but public authorities should still ensure that the requests meet this requirement.
PSNI can advise that regarding Request 1, to determine how many total hours have been spent working by PSNI personnel on Operation Begrain since it began in 2023 will take PSNI over 18 hours as:
■ The basic initial enquiries needed to confirm how long this would take would entail identifying all officers/staff and review their records. Approximately 40 Police Officers and 21 Police Staff appear on the relevant Operation BEGRAIN investigation account on the PSNI HOLMES system. Thus to accurately determine how many specific hours these personnel spent on Operation BEGRAIN will require manual examination of records etc. Even allowing an nominal one hour for each of the above personnel would place this request in excess of 61 hours thus exceeding the 18 hour cost limit.
■ This research time does not take into account the required time to ascertain the amount of hours spent on the account by Police staff which includes HOLMES Staff, Media, Data Protection and Legal Services.
■ There are additional activities that would also need to be carried out to adequately answer this such as reviewing IT records, police pocket notebooks and the time between actions being allocated and completed. All of these would extend this well beyond the 18 hours as laid out in legislation.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter should be considered as a Refusal Notice, and the request has therefore been closed.
Advice and Assistance
You may wish to submit a refined request in order that the cost of complying with your request may be facilitated within the ‘appropriate limit’. In compliance with Section 16 of the Act, we have considered how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit, but we are unable to provide a refinement.
■ Subject to a new request PSNI can provide a Response to Requests 2, 3 and 4.
Submission of a refined request would be treated as a new request, and considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, including consideration of relevant Part II exemptions.