FOI 272307

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 272307

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 21^st August 2023.  Please find below the response to your request:

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from your face:

1. The total number of civil orders issued by your force broken by year from 2018 to the most recent data available. If possible, I would appreciate it if this could be broken down by type of civil order issued.
2. The total number of complaints that were logged against officers at your force by year from 2018 to the most recent data available, if feasible, broken down by the nature of category of the complaint.
3. A breakdown of the outcomes of those complaints – i.e. how many led to, say, misconduct hearings or criminal prosecutions, how many led to investigations or how many had no further action taken – similarly broken down by year, as above.
4. The total number of both ‘mandatory' and ‘voluntary’ referrals to the IOPC of cases involving officers or staff from your force broken by year from 2018 to the most recent data available. In the case of ‘voluntary’ referrals, if possible, a wider breakdown of the outcomes of those referrals would be appreciated (i.e. how many led IOPC to launch its own investigation, how many led to the IOPC to supervise a force professional standards investigation or how many cases where the IOPC declined to have input into the case in question)

Reply

Your request for information has been considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”), and I am not obliged to provide the information requested.

S.12(1) of the Act states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the “appropriate limit”.  For police forces in England and Wales, the "appropriate limit" is £450 or 18 hours of work as set by the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.

The information you have requested in question 4 is not available in a readily retrievable format.  Each referral is made via a form which is saved within the case file, but these cannot be retrieved via a query and would be a manual search for each case file. In order to ascertain whether the information you have requested is held would take in excess of 18 hours as each record would have to be checked individually.  In accordance with s.17(5) of the Act, this acts as a Refusal Notice.

However, In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide the information requested for questions 1, 2 & 3 as this was retrieved during our initial research. This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests.  Please see below.

1. The total number of civil orders issued by your force broken by year from 2018 to the most recent data available. If possible, I would appreciate it if this could be broken down by type of civil order issued:-

Q1 Answer Table Civil Orders Issued by Year Recorded by Description

2. The total number of complaints that were logged against officers at your force by year from 2018 to the most recent data available, if feasible, broken down by the nature   of category of the complaint.

      Q2 Answer Table – Complaint Allegation Types Recorded Per Year

3. A breakdown of the outcomes of those complaints – i.e. how many led to, say, misconduct hearings or criminal prosecutions, how many led to investigations or how many   had no further action taken – similarly broken down by year, as above.

       Q3 Answer Table Complaint Allegation Outcomes by Year Complaint Recorded