FOI 529/25 Gross Misconduct

Date: 06/06/25

Enquiry Reference: 529 -25                                                                                            

 

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

1 - How many officers and staff have been found guilty of gross misconduct in 2025 up to 14/04/25?

Please also list the number for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020 and make clear if they were officers or staff.

2 - Please could you differentiate between the number of officers and staff dismissed and those who would have been dismissed, had they not already left the force.

3 - Please could you also list the reason(s) for their dismissal.

 

Case proven for Gross Misconduct:-

2025 – 01/01/2025 to 14/042025:

4 – all officers. all dismissed

Reasons for dismissal found proven for breaches of Discreditable conduct, Orders and Instructions and Duties and responsibilities.

 

2024

14 – 2 staff and 12 officers, 6 officers resigned but would have been dismissed, 6 dismissed, 2 Final written warnings.

Reasons for dismissal – found proven for breaches of the standards of discreditable conduct, duties and responsibilities, Orders & Instructions, confidentiality, and honestly & Integrity.

 

2023

14 – 2 staff and 12 officers, 6 officers resigned – would have been dismissed, 6 dismissed, 2 Final written warnings.

Reasons for dismissal – found proven for breaches of the standards of discreditable conduct, duties and responsibilities, challenging & reporting improper conduct, Orders & Instructions, confidentiality, and honestly & Integrity.

 

2022

9 – 2 staff and 7 officers, 2 resigned – would have been dismissed, 6 dismissed, 1 Final written warning Reasons for dismissal – found proven for breaches of the standards of discreditable conduct, Orders & Instructions, confidentiality, and honestly & Integrity.

 

2021

4 -  all officers all resigned would have been dismissed.

Reasons for dismissal – found proven for breaches of the standards of discreditable conduct, Orders & Instructions, and honestly & Integrity.

 

2020

2 – staff, 1 Final written warning and 1 dismissed.

Reasons for dismissal found proven for in breach the standard of Discreditable conduct.

 

*Please note the information is pulled from year that they were finalised on our systems.

 

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 confirm it holds 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.

By way of an 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.

 

A further breakdown of information requested could lead to the identification of an individual because of the small numbers involved.  Such a disclosure would breach an individual's rights under Chapter 3 of the GDPR.

 

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