Police staff data 264/2024

FOI Reference: 264/2024

Request:

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

1. How many police officers are employed by Dyfed-Powys Police?
2. How many of them have been vetted in the last a) three years b) five years c) ten years
3. How many officers have you stripped of their duties after they were vetted in the past 10 years? This data should be provided on an annual basis.
4. How many vetting reports have expired and not been redone? How many of those are for former officers?

Clarification:

• In relation to Q3, Could you please provide with the number of officers who have been dismissed from the force, or who have been suspended/repositioned to alternate duties due to ongoing misconduct.

• In relation to Q4, I mean this. My understanding is that each police officer is vetted when they come into the force, and then again on a regular basis after they join. My question is: how many police officers have not had a new vetting report done when it was meant to be done, meaning that their record would be out of date. Please do ignore the second bit though.

 

Response:

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 2000 requires Dyfed-Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

(a) states that fact,

(b) specifies the exemption in question and

(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information you have requested. However we are withholding some of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12(1) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Section 12 (1) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(1) states: “…Section 1 (1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The cost of providing you with the information requested in respect of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum 496.75 hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244

The Freedom of Information Unit has been advised that the information requested in relation to question 2 for the time period 2014 – 2021 is not held in an easily retrievable format and would exceed the appropriate time limit, i.e. 18 hours, to retrieve. This is due to the fact the previous system used does not allow for the requested information to be easily retrieved and therefore the relevant department would need to individually interrogate every form recorded on the vetting system in order to establish whether the form related to a Police Officer or other type of applicant.

It has been estimated that to individually interrogate each form would take a minimum of 3 minutes per form. It has been established that there are a total of 9,935 forms that would require interrogation. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

2014 – 2021: 9,935 forms x 3 minutes per form = 496.75

The average amount of time per year has been calculated as a total of 62 hours.

Therefore, total time estimate to complete the request = 496.75 hours.

 

Question 2 (2022 to present date) & Question 4:

The relevant department have advised that a response can be retrieved within the appropriate time limit, i.e. 18 hours.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact. You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.

 

Although excess cost removed the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.

Question 1:

Answer: 1283 police officers employed

Question 3:

Number of officers dismissed over the last 10 years (2014-2023)	23
Number of officers suspended over the last 10 years (2014-2023)	50
Number of officers repositioned to alternate duties	Data Not Held

 

This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on the 10th April 2024.