FOI 309-24 Warranted Police Officers
Enquiry Reference: 309 - 24
I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request, firstly please accept my apology for the delay. Below is your request and our response.
- Do Cleveland Police have any warranted police officers who are seconded to the National Board of the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW)?
Yes
- If yes, please list their rank, length of service with Cleveland Police and how long they have been seconded with PFEW on the National Board (to include any previous variations of the National Board).
3 x Constables and 1 x Sergeant
Please see below exemption
- Please confirm who pays the salary of those officers.
Cleveland Police
- If the salaries are paid for by Cleveland Police, does Cleveland Police recharge PFEW for this? If yes, is this the whole amount or a percentage? Please detail the amount of money spent by Cleveland Police to fund the officers seconded to the PFEW National Board in years 2020, 2021 and 2023 (if applicable).
2020/2021 £220K (2 constables and an inspector)
2021/2022 £110K (3 constables and a sergeant)
2022/2023 £197k (3 constables and a sergeant)
To note the above are the costs that were recorded in each of the financial years, it could reflect vacant posts or not in post for the full year ?
- If Cleveland Police do not recharge PFEW for the salaries then please explain why or if there are any plans to recharge PFEW?
This is not a valid question under FOI
- Who and what is the force line management structure/process for those officers who are seconded to the PFEW National Board i.e. who authorises annual leave, manages sickness absence and authorises expenses?
Head of Cleveland Police HR is their line manager.
- If a complaint were to be made against a Cleveland Police officer who is seconded to the PFEW National Board, who would investigate that allegation?
If the complaint related to their work as a fed rep then PFEW would be primary, otherwise the force would be primary would therefore be most appropriate in this case.
- Do the Cleveland Police officers seconded to the PFEW National Board have to undertake annual force Personal Safety Training and the Job Related Fitness Test (JRFT)? Do the officers have to be available for operational deployment, if required?
Yes
The above information is all we are able to provide and for anything else we reply on the following exemption.
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held. Where exemptions are relied upon, Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act requires that I provide the applicant with a notice which: a) states that fact b) specifies the exemption(s) in question and c) state (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
Cleveland Police can confirm it holds the information relevant to your request as the duty in Section 1(1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply, by virtue of the following exemptions:
Section 40(2) Personal Information
Section 40(2) is an absolute exemption which does not require me to evidence the harm that disclosure would cause and does not require consideration of a public interest test in justification of its use.
By way of explanation to you I would point out the following: Under Section 40(2) of The Freedom of Information Act, information is exempt information if it constitutes personal information of which the applicant is not the data subject. In order to be considered exempt personal information, the information must satisfy one of two conditions. It must either be information which would be exempt from disclosure to the data subject under the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018, or disclosure of the information would contravene any of the Data Protection Principles or cause damage or distress to the data subject.
On this occasion the information requested is clearly personal information and would contravene the first principle of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - lawfulness, fairness, and transparency, which are the likely expectations of the data subjects.
In that, would they expect Cleveland Police to release the length of service with Cleveland Police and how long they have been seconded with PFEW on the National Board.
Since the release of information under The Freedom of Information Act 2000, is release to the world at large, and not just to the individual applicant, I believe to do so would amount to unfair processing and therefore is exempt from disclosure.
The Cleveland Police response to your request is unique and it should be noted that Police Forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures to capture and record data therefore responses from Cleveland Police should not be used as a comparison with any other force response you receive.
If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request, you have the right to request an independent internal review of your case under our review procedure. The APP College of Policing guidance states that a request for internal review should be made within 20 working days of the date on this response or 40 working days if extenuating circumstances to account for the delay can be evidenced.
Yours sincerely
Information Rights Decision Maker