Superintendent and CSupt misconduct cases 454/2024

 FOI Reference: 454/2024

Request:

The Police Superintendents’ Association (PSA) requests that the following information is provided in relation to misconduct cases within your force.

1. The number of police officers at superintendent and chief superintendent ranks, who were served with misconduct and gross misconduct papers for each calendar year from 2014-2023.
2. The number of police officers at superintendent and chief superintendent ranks (as above), who were placed on restrictions as a result of the serving of a misconduct or gross misconduct notice for each calendar year from 2014-2023. 
3. The outcome of each misconduct and gross misconduct investigation launched against police officers at superintendent and chief superintendent ranks for each calendar year from 2014-2023. For clarity, please provide numerical data relating to the relevant instances of each outcome, ie the number of superintendents dismissed / receiving a written warning / receiving an outcome of ‘no further action’ etc, to cover all possible outcomes. Please ensure differentiation between ‘final written warnings’ and ‘written warnings’.
4. The demographic breakdown of the police officers at superintendent and chief superintendent ranks who received misconduct and gross misconduct notices in the calendar years 2014-2023, including numerical data relating to all protected characteristics including gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability.
5. The total number of outstanding misconduct and gross misconduct cases against police officers at superintendent and chief superintendent ranks as at 1^st March 2024.
6. Details of the length of time so far elapsed as part of the longest current live investigation into misconduct or gross misconduct and what allegations this relates to.
7. The number of police officers at superintending ranks in your force who have been absent from work due to sickness as a result of being served misconduct or gross misconduct papers in the calendar years 2014 – 2023.

For clarity, we are not seeking any personally identifiable information of serving or former officers, rather we seek data relating to the number and nature of instances of misconduct and gross misconduct notices served upon the superintendent ranks over this period.

 

Response to Q1 – Q7:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested; however we are exempting that information as we believe that the following exemption is relevant:

Section 40(2) Personal Information

The applied exemption relates to the breakdown of information, as requested within points 1-7 of the request. An explanation is provided below.

Section 40(2) applies to third party personal data and is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 if disclosure, in relation to data subject to law enforcement processing, 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 released 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, including police officers,  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 UK - General Data Protection Regulation (UK - 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:This section has no associated Explanatory Notes

“(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

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

Dyfed-Powys Police would not want to disclose any information that could potentially identify an individual. In this particular case, to provide the specific breakdown of information requested would be a direct breach of Data Protection legislation. Therefore, as a consequence I am satisfied that Section 40(2) Personal Information exemption is applicable to the release of the information.

The Section 40 exemption is a class-based exemption. This means that the legislators when writing the legislation considered that the release of such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would cause harm to the public authority or individual concerned. There is therefore no requirement to carry out a HARM Test in respect of such information.  

The Section 40 exemption is in part qualified and in part absolute, in the present case it would be absolute as to release the information would breach Data Protection legislation and therefore there is no requirement to carry out a public interest test.

 

 

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 12/06/2024)