FOI 56-24 Employment Tribunals
Enquiry Reference: 56-24
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.
1) How many employment tribunals were lodged by past or present staff against the force in the following calendar years: 2023, 2022, 2021. - For example, in 2023, 15 claims were lodged
2) Please provide detail on the type of claims lodged in the following calendar years: 2023, 2022, 2021.
- For example, in 2023, 15 employment tribunals were lodged, 5 related to sex discrimination, 10 related to disability discrimination.
3) Please provide detail on the amount paid out to successful claimants in the following calendar years: 2023, 2022, 2021.
- For example, in 2023, 15 claims were lodged, 5 related to sex discrimination. One sex discrimination resulted in compensation being awarded amounting to £5,000
Please note: if for data protection reasons you are unable to provide the figures broken down by year, please collate the figures over the three year period.
- e. between 2020 and 2023, 15 employment tribunal claims were lodged by past and present staff. 5 related to sex discrimination, 10 related to disability discrimination. In four cases relating to sex discrimination total of £11,000 was awarded in favour of complaints
If you believe the contents of any such files are exempt from disclosure, please provide summaries of any such exempt files.
- For the years 2021-2023 there have been less than 5 claims in total.
- The types of claims include disability, age discrimination, victimisation, and unfair dismissal or combination.
- There was nothing paid to staff following the lodging of a claim in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Having made enquiries within the Force the above information is all the information we can disclose and for anything else we would rely on the following.
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 neither confirm we hold the information pertinent to this request as the duty in Section 1(1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply, by virtue of the following exemption:
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.
This exemption is engaged where disclosure of information could lead to the identification of an individual, either from that information alone or combined with other information from within the Police Service or public domain. In this case, because of the extremely low numbers to break the request down any further it could be likely to identify the individuals concerned. Such a disclosure would breach an individual's rights under Article 5(1) of the GDPR.
Please note that all statistical data supplied in relation to Freedom of Information requests is a snapshot of data held at the time the request was received by the Freedom of Information office and is subject to constant change/updates.
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 Governance Manager