Communication Media Services Costing

1. How much did your force spend on press office/media services in 2010/2011 ?
2. How much does the force plan to spend on press office/media services in 2011/2012 ? Will there be redundancies in this department ? 
3.  Can you give me figures for the number of Freedom of Information requests your force has received in the last five years (e.g. 2006 – 1,000; 2007; 2,000; etc)
4. Can you give me the figures for the budget of the department which handles Freedom of Information requests for the last five years ? (e.g. 2005/2006 - £120,000; 2006/2007 - £140,000 etc).
5. How much does your force plan to spend on the department which handles Freedom of Information requests in 2011/2012? Will there be redundancies in this department ?

In accordance with section 1(1) (b) of the Act our response is provided below;

Question 1: £156,308.95 estimate

Question 2 a: £133,404.00 estimate

Question 2 b: No, but a restructure of the department places one post in a different team, dealing with community newsletters.

Question 3: This information is reasonably accessible to you by other means and is therefore exempt information in accordance with Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please view the FOI pages on our web site where you will find, at the bottom of page one, statistical information from 2005: Freedom of Information Pages

Question 4: Freedom of Information staff are part of the Information Management Unit, (IMU). The unit has evolved over recent years from a small team dealing with Data Protection and FOI to its current make up. The IMU now deals with a multitude of areas concerned with information handling, for example Data Protection, FOI, Information security, Information sharing, Audit, certain civil court disclosures, Review, retention & disposal of information in line with the Management of Police Information (MOPI) post Bichard etc. The budgets therefore reflect a substantial department involved in ever changing roles.

2005/2006 £177.972
2006/2007 £270.737
2007/2008 £385.921
2008/2009 £635.733
2009/2010 £842.682
2010/2011 £959.869

Question 5 a: 2011/2012 £1082.540 (Provisional)

Question 5 b: There is no information held in respect of any reduction to the staffing levels as of the date of your request.