Tegfan Care Home 540/2024

FOI Reference: 540/2024

Request:

How many calls have been made  regarding both premises & client complaints with regard to Tegfan care home in Ammanford.

My request relates to dates from December 2022 to the present. 

 

Response:

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 Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held. Where exemptions are relied upon, Section 17 of Freedom of Information Act requires that we 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

Dyfed-Powys Police Force can neither confirm nor deny that it holds any information relevant to your request as the duty in Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 31(3) Law Enforcement

Section 40(5) Personal Information

Section 31(3) is a prejudice-based and qualified exemption therefore there is a requirement to articulate the harm that would be caused in confirming or not whether information is held as well as carrying out a public interest test.

Section 40(5) Personal Information, in this case is an absolute exemption as outlined below and as a consequence there is no requirement to carry out a public interest test as to whether neither confirming nor denying the information exists is the appropriate response.

Section 31(3) Law Enforcement:

Evidence of harm

Disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act are disclosures to the world, not just to the individual making the request.  Police information refers to all information obtained, recorded or processed for a policing purpose and includes information which is processed (known as data, including personal data) and information which has been subject to a process of evaluation (known as intelligence), see below link:

http://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/information-management/

It is a business process with an intention to provide focus to operational policing and to achieve a disproportionately greater impact from the resources applied to any problem.  It is dependent on a clear framework of analysis of information and intelligence allowing a problem solving approach to law enforcement and crime prevention techniques. 

To confirm whether information is held or not, would undermine the flow of information (intelligence) received from members of the public into the Police Service and also undermines the Management of Police Information guidance and in due course any relevant investigation(s). Furthermore, confirmation or denial would undermine the guidance set out to forces by the College of Policing within their APP for Information Management.

Public Interest Test

Factors favouring confirmation or denial:

By confirming or denying whether information is held, the public would see whether any incidents were reported or associated to the subject. Better public awareness may reduce crime or lead to more information/intelligence from the public.

Factors against confirmation or denial:

The information requested may or may not be linked to an investigation(s). To merely acknowledge the existence of an enquiry would place sensitive information into the public domain. Furthermore, to provide information of this nature could compromise an investigation by making individuals aware of it, which in turn could lead to a change in behaviour that could impact upon the investigation.

Balance test:

The Police service will not divulge whether information is or is not held, if to do so would undermine law enforcement. When considering the public interest there is undoubtedly a call for openness and transparency with regard to the police service and this can be seen from the decision to, at times, publish details of incidents. That being said, this is only ever done when deemed safe to do so from a law enforcement perspective.  These factors need to be weighed against the very strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of police enquiries/investigations. The police service relies heavily on the public providing information and the public have an expectation that any information they provide will be treated with confidence. Anything that puts that confidence at risk would have a serious detrimental effect on the police service. In this case, to confirm or deny whether information is or isn’t held would undermine law enforcement and/or any investigative processes that may or may not have occurred.

It is therefore the opinion of Dyfed-Powys Police that for these issues the balancing test for confirming or not that information is held is not made out.

Section 40(5) Personal Information:

The duty to neither confirm nor deny under this section of the Act arises if confirmation as to whether the requested information is or isn’t held would breach any of the data protection principles contained within Part 3 - Chapter 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Under Section 34 within Chapter 2 “The Controller in relation to personal data is responsible for and must be able to demonstrate, compliance with” Chapter 2.  Such information would not be confirmed as held under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 unless there is a strong public interest. One of the main differences between the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 2018 is that any information released under FOI is released into the public domain, not just the individual requesting the information and disclosure under the Act must be made with that in mind. As such, any release that identifies an individual through releasing their personal data, even third party personal data is exempt.

Personal data is defined under Section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as:

“(2) ‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual (subject to subsection (14)(c)).

(3) ‘Identifiable living individual’ means a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to—

(a) An identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or

(b) One or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual.”

All members of the public including those employed by the force have an intrinsic right to privacy and these rights are protected by virtue of the Human Rights Act, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and a public authority must not interfere with that right. Any release of the information subject to the exemption is likely to compromise those rights.

Data Protection Act 2018

Part 3 – Law Enforcement – Chapter 2 Principles Section 35

The first data protection principle:

“(1) The first data protection principle is that the processing of personal data for any of the law enforcement purposes must be lawful and fair.”

General Data Protection Regulation

Article 5 of the GDPR – ‘Principles relating to processing of personal data’ provides:

“1. ‘Personal data’ shall be

(a) Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency);

(b) Collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest…

2. The controller shall be responsible for, and be able to demonstrate compliance with, paragraph 1 (‘accountability’).”

A disclosure under Freedom of Information Act is a release of information to the world in general and not an individual applicant.  Therefore, simply confirming or not that such information, if any, were held would disclose personal information about an individual. The Police Service will not confirm to the world in general whether or not an individual is the subject of an investigation or incident. In this case, the information requested relates to a specific address, which in turn relates specifically to the personal data of identifiable individuals, i.e. any staff or residents at the property. Therefore any disclosure, by citing an exemption or stating no information held, would clearly breach the Data Protection Act and as a consequence I am satisfied that Section 40(5) Personal Information exemption is applicable.

No inference can be taken from this refusal that the information you have requested does or does not exist.

                                                            

It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 08/07/2024)