FOI 82/25 Officer Misconduct

Enquiry Reference:  82 - 25                                                                                            

 

I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request.  Below is your request and our response.

 

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding police officer misconduct. Please could you provide the following information:

I would like to request this information for the last 4 years.

 

• The total number of police officers accused of misconduct 
• A breakdown of the number that proceeded to a misconduct hearing
• A breakdown of the outcomes in each case that proceeded to a misconduct hearing
• A breakdown of the type of misconduct alleged (e.g. Dishonesty, abuse of authority, discrimination)
• Please provide copies of summaries of the Modus Operandi (MO) sections for incident reports relating to misconduct cases that went to a hearing ensuring that all personal data is redacted to align with privacy regulation.
• The outcome of the above hearings 
• How many officers resigned before the proceedings were completed

 

Response :

• The total number of police officers accused of misconduct 
• Please provide copies of summaries of the Modus Operandi (MO) sections for incident reports relating to misconduct cases that went to a hearing ensuring that all personal data is redacted to align with privacy regulation.
• How many officers resigned before the proceedings were completed

 

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) 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 Sec 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held. Where exemptions are relied upon s17 of FOIA requires that we provide the applicant with a notice which: a) states that fact b) specifies the exemption(s) in question and c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

 

Having made enquiries within the Force due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, is not in an easily retrievable format. There are approximately 240 officers who have subject to misconduct investigations/reviews within last four years (01/01/2021 – 01/01/2025) and there have been over 7000 allegations.

 

The cost to run all of the queries and sort the data accordingly will take in excess of 18 hours and therefore is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond. This falls under the exemption of 'Compliance exceeding the appropriate limit' covered by Section 12 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and as such this work could not be undertaken.

Therefore, please treat this as a refusal notice under S17(1) of the Freedom of information Act.

Response:

• A breakdown of the number that proceeded to a misconduct hearing
• A breakdown of the outcomes in each case that proceeded to a misconduct hearing
• A breakdown of the type of misconduct alleged (e.g. Dishonesty, abuse of authority, discrimination)
• The outcome of the above hearings 

 

For the above I advise you that we consider the Freedom of information Act 2000 Exemption 21 (Information Accessible by other means) is engaged for part of this information and the majority of this information is available in the public domain and available via:

Police misconduct statistics - GOV.UK

 

The Home office have their own reports which each force run designed and built by the Centurion which is the complaints and discipline system used by the force. These submit the full details

 

This will provide the answers to:

 

• A breakdown of the number that proceeded to a misconduct hearing
• A breakdown of the outcomes in each case that proceeded to a misconduct hearing
• A breakdown of the type of misconduct alleged (e.g. Dishonesty, abuse of authority, discrimination)

• The outcome of the above hearings 

 

Response:

• How many officers resigned before the proceedings were completed

 

Outside of the act unfortunately we do don’t record officers that have resigned specifically on Centurion it would only record the outcome of:

 

‘Would Have Been Dismissed’

 

This is an outcome which would be for officers who have resigned or retired prior to the outcome of the hearing. This too is captured in the national data released within the GOV website.

 

 

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 Freedom of Information Code of Practice (see below link) 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. Public authorities are not obliged to accept internal reviews after this date.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-code-of-practice

 

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Decision Maker