Information Compliance Unit, Kent Police Headquarters, Sutton Road,
Maidstone, Kent ME15 9BZ Phone: 01622 654413
Fax: 01622 654437 - e-mail: [Kent Police request email]
Mr David Hansen
Date: 2nd October 2009
[FOI #12601 email]
Tel No.: (DDI) 01622 654413
FOI Ref: 4167/2009
INFORMATION REQUEST 4167-2009
Mr Hansen,
I am writing in regard to your communication received by Kent Police on 29th May 2009. This
communication contained a request for the following information:
http://www.kent.police.uk/Climate%20Camp/Climate%20Camp.html stated this morning, in a
statement dated 27 March 2009, that "In addition the Chief Constable has requested the
National Police Improvement Agency carry out a strategic level review of the policing of Climate
Camp. This will be conducted by a senior officer from another force and will involve the
consideration of the issues raised in the report published by the Liberal Democrat party
regarding the overall policing of this event, as well as the strategy and tactics used in the
operation."
I have made a copy of the page, in case it should "mysteriously"disappear".
Please provide me with a copy of the reports by the NPIA, which according to
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2009/05/police-shelve-review-on-kingsnorth-protest/ have
been completed and delivered to Kent Police. Please provide copies of the original report and
the revised one.
I am very conscious that this reply finds you sometime after both the statutory limit for
responding to requests has passed, and also after the 17th of July, which was the date of expiry
that we set as the public interest test extension date. I note that you have also requested an
internal review into the handling of your request. I am now in a position to provide a full
response to your request, and I will address the issues concerning delays in responding first.
The main issue that delayed our response to your request concerned staffing difficulties within
this unit. This had previously been conveyed to you in relation earlier requests but the fact that
these issues were continuing to cause delays warrants further explanation.
In the early part of this year, the Freedom of Information Team was undergoing staffing
difficulties after experienced staff moved on into other roles. Recruiting, vetting and finalising
staff into posts in the police service can take some time and it must be acknowledged that there
are few if any candidates in the employment market who can be found with prior knowledge of
information law. Having sourced candidates with the right potential, it is then necessary to
train them while in the role and this requires further expenditure of time and resources. This
situation has resulted in lengthy delays in processing some requests and a number of these are
currently in a backlog awaiting attention.
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The Freedom of Information Act has been in force since 2005 and is now becoming a mature
piece of legislation, with a substantial body of case law to inform decisions. The numbers of
requests received by forces nationally have seen a steady increase and we know from liaison
with colleagues in other forces that the quality of the requests we receive, and the quantity of
work that must be taken in responding to such requests, has increased significantly during
recent years. Certainly it is the case in Kent Police that, as the Force has become more aware
and more committed to the purposes of openness and accountability which underlie the
legislation, we are increasingly careful to ensure that the information we release is as complete
and as accurate as possible.
Kent Police have now replaced staff and increased resources to the unit handling FOI requests,
and we are working hard to deal with new business while reducing the backlog of existing
requests. We apologise for any inconvenience that these delays have caused to applicants. We
are currently working with the Information Commissioner’s Office to discuss and resolve these
difficulties.
Kent Police have dealt with a number of enquiries from you regarding the policing of the Camp
for Climate Change. I note from our records that prior to receipt of this request, we had also
recently received requests from you concerning essentially the same matter (i.e., the policing
operation) on March 13th and 1st April 2009.
As well as your request of the 29th May 2009, on the 22nd June you communicated with Kent
Police again, this time requesting to know the date of the release of the ‘compendium of
information’ document concerning the policing of the climate camp, which had been referred to
as intended for future publication in previous responses to yourself and other applicants.
Please provide the estimated date when this "compendium of information" will be made
available. It is now 10 1/2 months since the Climate Camp and it is clear that Kent Police have a
lot to hide, which no-doubt explains the constant delays in putting up this "compendium of
information".
This was not identified as a separate FOI request, as it primarily requested comment. No date
was ever set for the release of the Compendium of Information, which was finally released on
the same date as the NPIA documents. This was principally because some of the information
included was still being updated and corrected, which would impact upon both documents, in
particular important information concerning the numbers of stop and searches carried out
during the operation. As this was a dynamic situation it would have been difficult to convey
that to you at the time, although it would have been possible to provide a simple ‘information
not held response’.
I acknowledge that Kent Police could have treated this as a separate FOI enquiry, but we did
not. This was caused by confusion in terms of the fact that we were already dealing with the
latest in a string of communications from you. No date was ever set for publication and so no
recorded information would have been held in regard to your request. The document was
always intended for future publication and so it would have been appropriate to issue a formal
notice stating this, although there would have been little point. Even if Kent Police had been
requested to provide this information previously and had refused to do so, as it was
‘information intended for future publication’ (and therefore exempt under Section 22 of the
Act), there was no requirement for us to set an actual date of publication and it would not have
been possible to do so when information was being dynamically complied. The Act requires
only that the information should be published within a reasonable time and we considered that
it was reasonable to delay publication until the information was ready. It should also be noted
that Kent Police were under no obligation to produce such a document and this was only
undertaken in the interests of openness and accountability.
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On the 28th June, you requested that a review be conducted into the handling of your
(principal) request concerning the NPIA debrief and review documents.
I am writing to request an internal review of Kent Police's handling of my FOI enquiry
'Kingsnorth NPIA report'. This has not been responded to within the maximum permitted time
and thus, once again, Kent Police are criminals.
This message appeared to relate to the request received on 29th May, although you did not refer
to the reference number provided in our acknowledgement.
As you may by now be aware, there were two exercises that examined the Kent Police
operation to police the camp for climate change held at Kingsnorth Power Station in July/August
2008 (Operation Oasis), and these both resulted in reports that to one extent or another, were
captured by your request.
The first was a debriefing exercise of officers involved in the operation. This exercise was
conducted by Chief Inspector Mike Ismay of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA)
in October 2008 and a draft report followed. As you are now aware, the latest version of this
document has now been published on the Kent Police website at http://www.kent.police.uk
under the heading ‘Climate Camp’. Your request therefore asked for copies of reports and any
draft reports held by Kent Police on the 28th May 2009.
On the 7th July, our Freedom of Information Administrator wrote to you, advising that the
Authority needed to determine the public interest in confirming or denying whether the
information was held, and citing the Law Enforcement exemption at section 31 of the Act. This
message was erroneous and incorrectly adapted from a standard notice. As the existence of
the information (in terms of the report) was already a matter of public statement and
knowledge, there was no need to consider whether it was appropriate to confirm or deny that
the information was held. The statement should have simply identified that there was a need
to consider the public interest in the release of draft documentation, which may have released
information prejudicial to law enforcement tactics or other related interests.
It must be considered in relation to any document that relates to a policing operation that it
may be necessary to consider the public interest in relation to the release of any information
contained therein that may prejudice law enforcement, as referred to in Section 31 of the Act.
The specific subsection of the Act that may have applied is section 31(1)(a):
(1) Information which is not exempt information by virtue of section 30 is exempt
information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice—
(a) the prevention or detection of crime,
Therefore it had been determined that, in relation to the first report and the release of any draft
documents, it was necessary to extend the deadline beyond the original due date in order to
consider the public interest in relation to that exemption.
During these considerations, it was quickly determined that there would be no substantial
prejudice to Law Enforcement by the release of information contained in any of the documents.
However, it was further necessary to consider whether the release of documents created as
part of the process of audit, inspections and reviews would represent a different harm, by
negatively affecting the review process itself.
It is part of the process of audit, inspections and reviews that initial views and finding are
submitted to the body being scrutinised, so that they may have an opportunity to correct any
misconceptions or misunderstandings. It is possible to foresee that, should it become common
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practice to release such documents, this could have a chilling effect on the willingness of public
authorities to submit to, cooperate and communicate freely with such exercises, as this may
impede the free and frank exchange of views for the purpose of deliberation and so this could
engage the exemption at Section 36(2)(b) and (c) of the Act (Prejudice to the Effective Conduct
of Public Affairs).
However, in this specific case the alterations did not present any significant harm in this regard
and given the considerable public interest surrounding the policing of the climate camp event
and the processes that have subsequently been engaged with the intention to further
improve policing at such events, there is substantial public benefit in the release of some
information relating to how this process is achieved. Even so, as with all requests for
information, such a disclosure is made on a case-by-case basis and this release of information
does not set a precedent for the routine release of draft inspection or review documents.
Further to the above, the Department of Constitutional Affairs guidance highlights the following
in relation to requests for copies of documents:
It is important to bear in mind however, that the Freedom Of Information Act applies to
information, and not to documents. Whilst the information requested is likely to be contained in
a document, this does not mean that the document has to be released with exempt material
redacted from it. Rather, it may be more appropriate to release solely the information that can
be released by creating a new document with only that information contained. This is likely to
be particularly relevant where the majority of the information contained in the document does
not fall within the scope of the applicant’s request.
DCA Guidance, People’s Rights, Freedom of Information
Chapter 08 – Responding to the Request for Information
In accordance with that guidance, we consulted with the NPIA to construct a summary of all
changes to the draft documents, which is attached at Appendix 1. This will also make it easier
for you to identify the amendments, which I consider accords with our duty to assist under
Section 16 of the Act. We are indebted to the FOI team at the NPIA for their assistance in
producing this summary.
Although the Chief Constable acknowledged to the NPIA the usefulness of the debriefing report,
a number of issues had been raised in the intervening period by Parliament, the media and the
public concerning the policing operation that were not captured by the scope of the first report.
To address this, in March 2009, the Chief Constable contacted the IPCC and the NPIA and
asked for a second examination of Operation Oasis, this time intended to address strategic level
issues. Assistant Chief Constable Andrew Holt of South Yorkshire Police, an officer with
considerable experience in public order policing, undertook to carry out this work.
To an extent, this review superseded the work being undertaken with regard to the earlier
debriefing document, so it should be noted that the latest version of the first report is not
entirely a finished and polished product.
The terms of reference for the strategic level review were drawn up in April 2009 and the
review itself followed that. I note again that your request was submitted on the 29th May 2009.
A hard copy first draft of the Strategic Level review document was not presented to Assistant
Chief Constable Andy Adams until the end of June. The final version was received around the
14th July and published within a few days.
The Freedom of Information Act allows access to recorded information that existed at the time
when the request was received. From this response it should be clear that your request was
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submitted prior to some information existing, or prior to it actually being held by Kent Police.
There has been some inaccurate reporting in the media that Kent Police was delaying the
release of these documents and I hope that this response provides some clarity and
reassurance that this was not the case. It had always been the Chief Constable’s stated
intention from the outset to proactively release the final report on the Kent Police Website and
in the interests of openness and accountability this has now been published, in company with
the previous debriefing report and the Compendium of Information. This includes the Chief
Constable’s comments concerning the outcome of the review.
On the 22nd July, you contacted the force again, this time enquiring about your previous
questions concerning the Compendium of Information.
I am writing to request an internal review of Kent Police's handling of my FOI enquiry 'Climate
camp "compendium of information"'. As I expected of this criminal organisation Kent Police has
broken the law yet again by yet again failing to respond to my enquiry within the maximum
time allowed. The promised "compendium of information" is not available on the web site
either. It is now nearly a year since the illegal activities of Kent Police at the Climate Camp and
it has been clear for a long time that Kent Police are trying to cover up their illegal activities and
hoping that people will forget all about them.
I have already acknowledged earlier in this letter that Kent Police had not identified your
request for the release date of the Compendium as an FOI request. This is partly due to the
regularity of communications from you surrounding the policing operation and your manner in
presenting these communications in that your requests for information regularly ask for
comment rather than recorded information and are couched in terms of attacks upon the Force,
which only serve to obfuscate your requests.
When we applied the public interest test to your request concerning the review documents, we
identified that you were due to receive a response by the 17th July. On the 22nd July, you
contacted us again to point out that you had not yet received this response. On that same day,
I contacted you to inform you that much of the information you had requested had been
published on the Kent Police website, including the Compendium of Information.
With this response letter I consider that all of the information pertinent to your requests has
now been provided to you. I acknowledge that we have not communicated sufficiently with you
and that opportunities were missed to deal with your requests more quickly by informing you
that information was not yet held or was intended for future publication. I apologise that this
has been the case and we are taking steps to improve our communications with our applicants
and to deal with requests in a more timely manner.
However, while responding to your numerous requests over the last months, and reviewing the
progress of these most recent communications, I have become of the opinion that it is not
reasonable to expect staff in public authorities to respond to requests that are submitted in a
manner calculated to attack and cause offence.
I can now inform you that this too, contributed to delays in responding to your requests, as I
was forced to consider whether I should regard your requests as vexatious in terms of Section
14 of the Act, as follows;
1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the
request is vexatious.
Section 14 - Vexatious or repeated requests
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The Information Commissioner’s guidance regarding vexatious requests states that clearly
unreasonable requests can strain an organisation’s resources, damage the credibility of the
FOIA and get in the way of answering other requests.
Factors that may be considered include, but are not limited to;
Whether the request can fairly be seen as obsessive?
Whether the request is harassing the authority or causing distress to staff?
Whether complying with the request would impose a significant burden in terms of expense and
distraction?
Whether the request is designed to cause disruption or annoyance?
Does the request lack any serious purpose or value?
The ICO’s guidance advocates taking account of the wider context and history of the request
when considering the questions. A request may not be vexatious in isolation, but when
considered in context (for example if it is the latest in a long series of overlapping requests or
other correspondence) it may form part of a wider pattern of behaviour that makes it vexatious.
When considering the above, I am of the opinion that a number of these factors may be
considered in relation to the whole corpus of your requests.
As already stated, your requests are often attempts to elicit comment, and are framed as
attacks upon the Authority and by extension its staff. While no obviously offensive language is
employed, your use of terms such as ‘criminal’ and illegal’ are clearly designed to offend staff
working for an organisation dedicated to upholding the law. I have taken issue to such
statements in previous responses to you and yet you have continued to employ such terms,
although your comments are completely unnecessary to making a request under the Freedom
of Information Act.
Many of your communications demand that your requests are dealt with separately. However,
public authorities, to a degree, have the right to aggregate requests when they concern
essentially the same subject matter, for example, for the considerations of cost to the authority.
Your method of communication has made it difficult to engage with you, and it is my view that
this is deliberately calculated, as you have no desire to engage with this organisation in a
reasonable manner.
Furthermore, your requests are routed via the public forum website ‘whatdotheyknow.com’.
This website is a useful tool to the purposes of freedom of information as it is often useful for
such requests to be dealt with in a public manner. However, it is my opinion that your
intention is to abuse the legislation by employing it as a vehicle through which to conduct, on a
public forum, an aggressive and offensive dialogue with Kent Police. This is not the purpose of
the Act and I believe that it does indeed undermine the credibility of this important legislation.
The purpose of the Act is to promote openness and accountability in public authorities and to
provide access to the public to information where there is public benefit in that information
being released. With that spirit in mind, Kent Police have indulged your requests thus far and
have always been sympathetic to the public interest in releasing information related to the
policing of the Climate Camp, from the planning stage to the debriefing and review period. The
purposes of openness and accountability have been well served by our release of the debriefing
and review documents, and other associated material such as the Compendium of Information.
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As stated, we were considering whether your requests could be fairly characterised as vexatious
when we received the next ‘request’ from you dated 19th August, which served to confirm my
opinion;
I have now had a chance to study the information which has recently been dragged out of Kent
Police about the various police attacks on the fine upstanding citizens attending the Climate
Camp. I hope that you will be able to assist me with my enquiries into the theft and attempted
theft of items before the climate camp started. This is documented at
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/405125.html which speaks for itself.
With a sense of the absurd which Franz Kafka would have been proud of, in the NPIA report
these events are mentioned in "THE MAIN AREAS THAT WENT WELL" section of the report. "It
was seen by Kent Police that the pro-active execution of a search warrant on the Camp in the
initial stages of the operation deprived protesters of resources." Page 12.
The South Yorkshire Police report mentions these activities on page 23, without criticism. Both
reports are at http://www.kent.police.uk/Climate%20Camp/Climate%20Camp.html
Please answer the following questions:
1) What happened to the two people who were falsely arrested for trying to prevent the police
attack? Were they charged? If so, what did the courts do?
2)Have Kent Police apologised to these two people and the three who, it is alleged, were
assaulted by police officers using pepper spray?
3) What evidence was presented to the tame magistrate who, I imagine, was responsible for
"authorising" this assault?
4) What is the name of this tame magistrate? What court do they pontificate in?
5) Please provide a copy of the search warrant (this will presumably need to be provided as an
image).
6) Have Kent Police apologised to the Climate Camp in general over this assault?
7) http://www.kent.police.uk/Climate%20Camp/Climate%20Camp.html states that, "I also
recognise the report identifies several areas for learning." Has Kent Police learnt anything from
these thefts, attempted thefts and assaults, or does Kent Police still think that this is something
which "went well"?
Once again, with the exception of question 5, these questions ask for comment, which it has
been previously explained to you is not a form of information that a public authority is required
to provide under the Act.
I refuse to accept this as a valid request, and therefore I will not issue a separate response for
your convenience. Once again, you have chosen to use unhelpful and unnecessary pejorative
terminology such as ‘tame magistrate’, ‘thefts’, and ‘assaults’.
In my view, this communication clearly proves that your purpose is primarily to harass this
public authority and its staff and your questions have little serious purpose or value. Such
requests waste the valuable time of our staff and impede genuine users of the legislation.
Clearly, any information we were to provide would simply result in another communication from
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you as you seek to extend your dialogue with the Force. There is a reasonable limit to which
authorities should have to respond to requests that seek to examine in detail every aspect of an
issue. Even if this request were not couched in pejorative terminology, I consider that Kent
Police has now arrived at that limit with your requests.
In my view, to accede to comply with this request would be to accept the vexatious and
inaccurate assertions contained therein. I therefore consider that this request is vexatious in
nature and Kent Police is not required to comply with the request by providing any information
that may be held in regard to it, although it is clear that we are unlikely to hold any information
in regard to most of these questions, as most of them appear to have been informed by
inaccurate or at least unsubstantiated reportage.
This letter therefore acts as a refusal notice to comply with your request and informs you that
Kent Police are no longer prepared to communicate with you on this basis. Furthermore, any
future requests on any subject that are couched in similar terms, will also be refused as
vexatious under Section 14 of the Act.
You retain the right to complain. A member of staff who has not previously been involved with
this request will conduct an internal review of this decision and will endeavour to reply within 20
working days. However, when considering the circumstances, we are not prepared to accept a
request for an internal review via the means you have employed to date. You may request a
review by writing to:
Head of the Information Compliance Unit
Professional Standards Department
Kent Police Headquarters
Sutton Road,
Maidstone Kent
ME15 9BZ
If you are still dissatisfied following our internal review, you have the right under section 50 of
the Act to complain directly to the Information Commissioner. Before considering your
complaint, the Information Commissioner would normally expect you to have exhausted the
complaints procedures provided by Kent Police.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
FOI Compliance Team (complaints)
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely,
Nigel Amos
Freedom of Information Adviser
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