Freedom of Information requests

Dear Independent Police Complaints Commission,

Please supply the number of Freedom of Information requests made to
the IPCC in the following calendar years.

2005.
2006.
2007.
2008.
2009.

Please aso supply all data, if held, as to the number of internal
reviews that have been rejected or upheld (even partially) by the
IPCC in the same years. If you require an explanation or
clarification of this part of my request please feel free to ask.

I ask this because it appears to me that internal reviews are a
"fait accompli" at the IPCC and, in my experience, are always
rejected.

Yours faithfully,

Tony Wise

Dear Independent Police Complaints Commission,

Any chance of an acknowledgement?

Yours faithfully,

Tony Wise

Dear Athena Cass,

Please adhere to the 20 working day legal requirement. The IPCC has
had plenty of time to deal with the problems that you repeatedly
use as an excuse. Further I am not concerned with any other request
apart from mine. The law states that you have twenty working days
in order to respond so please do that. If you have too few staff to
adhere to your legal responsibilities then I suggest that the IPCC
either engages more staff, reorganises its current staff or becomes
more efficient within the available resource pool.

Also if there is an identifiable problem, such as continually
letting down complainants which results in their further search for
the truth via FOI or DPA, address that as a matter of urgency.

I am sure that is what the ICO will tell you to do some of the
above anyway. However I will be complaining to the ICO if your
response time is too unreasonable.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Wise

Dear Athena Cass,

As an organisation charged with upholding conduct, rules and the
law in relation to the police I find it disturbing that the IPCC
can have such a cavalier attitude to the same conduct and rule of
law. No attempt has been made as far as I am aware to address these
constant failings and breaches of statute. It is absolutely vital
that the IPCC upholds the law at all times and is explicitly seen
to do so. However at this time the IPCC clearly sees itself to be
above the law of the land.

Crucially how can the police be expected to have any respect for
the integrity of the IPCC if that body is a serial offender as
regards law breaking with no obvious attempt being made to address
the failing. These constant excuses are now completely unacceptable
and are, quite frankly, a sick joke. I suspect that the IPCC has
created a vast army of very disgruntled citizen complainants who
are attempting to address injustice and see just how the IPCC has
addressed their important cases via the statutory regimes.

TONY WISE.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Wise

Dear Independent Police Complaints Commission,

This really is quite pathetic and a total disregard of the law. I
am complaining to the ICO because this just isn't funny any more.

Yours faithfully,

Tony Wise

Dear Independent Police Complaints Commission,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I have waited for three months outside of the statutorily allowed
period under FOI and even then there are clear and present breaches
of the Act. There has been absolutely no engagement with the
requestor under section 16 in order to facilitate or provide the
statutory advice or assistance under section 16. There has been a
flat refusal to provide parts of the request via section 12 with no
chance being provided for me to refine my request in any way. The
cost limit has been applied in full with no recourse to the
requestor in any attempt to refine the request. Indeed to be told
of this over three months after my request should have been
answerded by law in any event is a total insult to the Act itself.

However I will now refine my request for you based on your
analysis.

18 hours equates to (18 X 60 minutes) equals 1080 minutes.

You have said that it would "take in excess of 3 minutes to
identify extract and collate the relevant data from each file".
1080 minutes divided by three minutes equals 360 files. Therefore
approximately 360 files would be allowed to be assessed under your
analysis. Some files may take in excess of three minutes, however,
some may take less than three minutes because you cannot know or
indicate precisely. However I am prepared to accept all data from
the 234 files from 2009 and only 116 of the latest files from 2008.
This equates to only 350 files which at 3 minutes per file equates
to 1050 minutes. This allows thirty minutes "floating" in order to
accommodate any excess or indeed surplus.

If you have any further proposals please feel free to ask.

Please deal with this as an internal review. I will also be raising
my further dissatisfaction at your non use of section 16 with the
ICO.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fr...

Yours faithfully,

Tony Wise

Dear Theresa Reid,

I appreciate the response. However it appears to be merely a sop
after I have waited over 4 months for the response that Ms Kelly
has now involved herself in at a very, very late stage.

As the FOI Act is a statutory process and in view of the fact that
the IPCC is intrinsically linked with statute I would have thought
that the Director of Corporate and Legal Services would have become
involved in such a major breach of statute before now. Obviously
some statutes are nore equal than others at the IPCC. Howevr I can
absolutely guarantee that the IPCC will apply any available statute
to the letter at any time if it results in an avenue to refuse
information to the public. Thereafter if appropriate the same
statute will be ignored; if it suits.

It makes me think that the IPCC, in reality, cares nothing really
about applying statute properly and that the public will get
irrational and perverse outcomes at some stages and sometimes not.
The FOI Act 2000 is the same as the PRA 2002 to any reasonable
person in terms of statute. However application of both is, at
best, patchy at the quango that is the IPCC. I hope that this
changes in the near future.

I also hope that the current review doesn't take nearly as long as
the original and unlawful response in terms of time allowed.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Wise

Dear Independent Police Complaints Commission,

Even in the light of the recent enforcement notice the internal
review is delayed and outside the guidance laid down by the ICO.

Yours faithfully,

Tony Wise

Dear Phil Johnston,

Thank you for your response.

Can I take the opportunity to request some kind of update in
relation to PJ/1001883? I wrote to 26 May 2010 and have heard
nothing in the 6 weeks since.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Wise