FOI 14/26 Vetting Outcomes
Date: 02/02/26
Enquiry Reference:14 -26
I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request. Below is your request and our response.
I am seeking information about vetting outcomes, continued employment, and related correspondence within your police force.
Please provide the following information for the most recent ten full calendar years:
- The number of individuals who applied for a role within the force (including police officer, police staff, PCSOs, or specials) and failed to meet the required vetting standards for that role, but who:
o remained employed by the force in a different role, or
o were subsequently appointed to a different role within the force that required a different level of vetting.
- Where available, a breakdown of the figures in question 1 by:
o the role originally applied for,
o the role in which the individual remained or was later employed,
o whether the vetting failure related to recruitment vetting, management vetting, or another vetting category.
- Whether your force has any policy, guidance, or procedure that permits individuals who fail vetting for one role to remain employed in another role within the force.
o If so, please provide the title of the policy and the date it came into effect.
- Details of any formal correspondence between your force and any relevant labour force unions or staff associations (including, but not limited to, the Police Federation, UNISON, Unite, GMB, or other recognised bodies) that relates to:
o vetting failures and continued employment within the force, or
o policies or practices allowing redeployment or retention following a vetting failure.
- a) Trade unions are not subject to FOI.
For this question, I am seeking:
o the existence of such correspondence,
o the dates, parties involved, and general subject matter of the correspondence.
Copies or extracts of the correspondence may be provided where disclosure is possible, with any personal data appropriately redacted.
I am not seeking any personal data. Aggregate figures and policy-level information only are sufficient.
If any part of this request is exempt from disclosure, please provide:
* the specific exemption(s) relied upon, and
* the information that can be disclosed within the scope of the request.
For question 1 & 2 we would rely on the following and please note if one part of the request engages a Section 12 response, the whole request will engage a Section 12 response. The reason being is due to the fact that locating, retrieving and extracting any further information would only add to the already exceeded time obligations.
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, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record. Where relevant information is held deeper in a record a manual assessment is usually required to retrieve that information. In this instance the information requested is not held at case management system level therefore to determine such detail would require an audit of every Cleveland Police employees individual Core-Vet files, currently about 2,500 to extract this data together. This figure does not include those who have left and at the minimum 8 minutes a record this would take in excess of the appropriate time stipulated by the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer on the 18th Of October 2004, that is, eighteen hours. 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 Section 17(5) of the Freedom of information Act.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act we have a duty to provide advice and assistance however on this occasion we cannot offer any suggestion on how you could refine this request.
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