Convictions of Serving Police Officers

Dear Sir

Please accept my apologies for not dealing with this request within the 20
day deadline. In respect of the request you have made for:

Please confirm how many serving officers in the British Transport Police
force have been convicted of:

(1) Fraud and deception related offences,

(2) Violent offences, including assault,

(3) Drug related offences

(4) Sexual offences

(5) Racial, Religious or Homophobic offences

British Transport Police have considered your request and are unable to
supply you with the information you have requested for the following
reason.

A check is made on every recruit and if a conviction is relevant or there
has been a failure to declare a conviction then the person will not be
employed. If the conviction is for an offence that is not considered a
barrier to employment no record is made as it is not deemed to be a
relevant issue having been discounted as a barrier to employment.

Consequently BTP do not store information regarding officers having a
criminal record within a central database and the amount of work required
to locate and collate this information would exceed the appropriate limit
applicable to FOI requests. BTP have some 3000 police officers so
spending just 10 minutes checking each record to see if an officer has a
conviction would result in some 500 hours of work. The Appropriate Limit
is a figure above which Public Authorities do not have to respond to
request. Currently this is set at 18 hours of work. You can find more
information on the Appropriate Limit at
[1]http://www.btp.police.uk/pdf/FOI_publica...
.

The Information Commissioner has issued guidance that Public Authority's
should offer to supply information within the Appropriate Limit; however,
in these circumstances it is not possible to do this. If you would like
to contact BTP with a view to modifying your request so that some
information can be supplied within the Appropriate Limit we would be more
than happy to try and assist.

As required by the Freedom of Information Act 200 you do have the right to
ask for an internal review to be carried in respect of this decision. If
you would like this decision to be reviewed please contact me and I will
arrange this.

Brian Coleman BA MSc
Information Standards Manager

Information Standards Unit
British Transport Police
25 Camden Road
London
NW1 9LN

Tel 020 7830 6751

References

Visible links
1. http://www.btp.police.uk/pdf/FOI_publica...

Dear Sir

In respect of your request for a review of the response to your Freedom of
Information request dated 9^th November 2008, the original decision has
been reviewed and British Transport Police is of the opinion that the
decision still stands.

As previously explained British Transport Police do not hold the
information, as defined by Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act
2000, and for BTP to compile the information requested would far exceed
the `Appropriate Limit'. It is therefore unrealistic to compile the
information as BTP would have to use an inordinate amount of resources.

The Information Commissioner has instructed that Public Authority's should
offer to supply information within the Appropriate Limit, however, in this
instance I cannot see how this can be achieved, other than to check a
limited number of officers which would still not answer you question. If
you would like to make an alternative request please do not hesitate to
contact us.

I note in your request that you state that there are Home Office
guidelines covering this topic, however, BTP are unaware of any such
guidelines. Similarly, as far as BTP are aware there are no ACPO
guidelines.

In respect of the question you asked in your email of the 2^nd February
2009 I can advise you that one officer fell within the criteria you
specified.

Once a review has been completed if you are still unhappy with the answer
you have the right to complaint to the Information Commissioner. You can
write to the ICO at:

Information Commissioner's Office,

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Alternatively you can use the ICO's online contact form which can be found
at https://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/contact_us....

Brian Coleman BA MSc
Information Standards Manager

Information Standards Unit
British Transport Police
25 Camden Road
London
NW1 9LN

Tel 020 7830 6751

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