National Attendance Management Forum

Dear West Midlands Police,

I am making a request for all the information to which I am
entitled under the Freedom Of Information Act. In order to assist
you with this request, I am outlining my query as specifically as
possible. If however this request is too wide or too unclear, I
would be grateful if you would contact me by email, as I understand
that under the Act, you are required to advise and assist
requesters.

The Home Office has advised me that West Midlands Police are the
organisers of The National Attendance Management Forum and that
meetings are held at The West Midlands Police Training Centre.

I am requesting all of certain information that you hold concerning
The National Attendance Management Forum.

To help you direct your search more efficiently, I believe that the
relevant meeting/s took place some time before 2004.

Further, the focus of my request is on a survey that was mentioned
in Home Office Circular 46/2004, Annex C, from which I quote:

'This Guidance is being issued to help ensure a fairer, more
cohesive approach to the payment of injury benefits to ill-health
retired officers who have reached the compulsory retirement age
with their Force.

A recent survey found that practice in this area was diverse. Some
forces automatically reduced degree of disablement benefits to the
lowest banding when this age had been reached - others continued to
pay benefits at the same rate until the death of the Officer
concerned.'

The Home Office has provided the following information regarding
the survey: 'There was one survey, which was referred to in the
guidance, which would have been conducted as part of a round the
table discussion at the National Attendance Management Forum.'

For the purpose of this request 'document' should be taken to mean
minutes, notes, agendas, presentations, memos, letters, research
papers or reports or any other material whether printed or in
digital form, including any emails or recordings.

With the survey the Home Office has identified in mind, I ask that
you provide copies of all documents resulting from or related to
The National Attendance Management Forum that mention or otherwise
refer to or address the survey identified above, and any documents
that mention or refer to police injury award pensions and/or their
management and/or the review process concerning police injury award
pensions and/or any documents relating to the discussion that took
place concerning these matters.

I also ask that you provide me with a copy of any document that
states the purpose of the National Attendance Management Forum,
and/or its aims and/or objectives.

I also ask that you provide me with a copy of any document that was
provided to the Home Office, or to any other Government department,
or to any civil servant, Government body, agency, body or
individual acting on behalf of the Government or Government
department, or to any other party whomsoever, that contains any
reference to or mention of the survey or discussion identified
above.

I also ask that you provide me with any information you hold
identifying the members and attendees of the National Attendance
Management Forum on occasions where the matters listed above were
discussed. Names are not required, but I ask that you identify
members and attendees by job title, and in the case of police
officers and civilian police employees please also identify their
home force.

With the aim of easing your work load, if you can initially provide
a copy of the survey identified above, then please do so, as I may
then be able to modify my request and reduce the volume of material
that may be required.

I ask that any material you provide should be sent in any standard
digital format, by email response.

Many thanks,

Ms N. McCall

Dear West Midlands Police Freedom of Information Unit,

Thank you for your interim response and progress report.

I am grateful that you are going to so much effort to find the
relevant information. It is a pity that there is no trace of
anything that can be readily identified as the survey identified by
the Home Office. However, as you have indicated, it may be that the
minutes from the meeting where the 'round the table discussion'
took place will be helpful.

I don't want to make unnecessary work for you, so if you can find
the minutes outlined above they may suffice. Of course, I won't be
in a position to know that until I have sight of them.

Also with a view to easing your workload, and hopefully enabling a
more prompt final response, I will be happy to be given a copy of
any document that identifies the forces represented at the meeting
when the round the table discussion took place rather than be
supplied with documentary evidence of the job titles of those
attending.

Clearly, the Home Office was informed in some way of the results of
the round the table discussion and I am particularly interested to
have sight of any document that records how this information was
communicated.

Once I have had sight of the information indicated above I may be
able to modify my request substantially.

Many thanks,

Ms. N. McCall

Dear Freedom of Information Unit,

Thank you for your response.

I am puzzled. The meeting of the National Attendance Management
Forum, the edited minutes of which you kindly sent me, was held on
the 12th October 2004.

But Home Office Circular 46/2004 and its Annex C were published on
the 9th of August 2004.

This means that the discussion about injury pensions in the
document you have provided cannot possibly be what was used to
inform the 'survey' mentioned in HOC 46/2004 Annex C.

I therefore must ask you to be so kind as to look again at the
records West Midlands Police must have and try to identify and
supply the documents that I originally requested.

Yours sincerely,

Ms. N. McCall

Dear Freedom of Information Unit,

National Attendance Management Forum -
Police Injury Pensions

Further to my earlier message, I now have it from the Home Office
that the discussion I am seeking to identify may have taken place
in the form of several discussions, or one interrupted discussion
on the topic, spread over several meetings.

I hope this information may help you in your search.

Perhaps it might further ease your workload if I asked you to
provide me with copies of the minutes of all meetings of the
National Attendance Management Forum for the three years preceding
the date of publication of Home Office Circular 46/2004?

Can you advise me of your view on this suggestion?

I am grateful for your assistance so far and trust that you will
shortly be able to provide, in full, the documentary information I
have requested.

Yours sincerely,

Ms. N. McCall