Police Injury Pensions Policy

Dear John

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 0629/09

We acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information (FOI) request which
was received by Cambridgeshire Constabulary on 14/12/09.

Your request will now be considered in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. You will receive a response within the statutory
timescale of twenty working days as defined by the Act. In some
circumstances, we may be unable to achieve this deadline. If this is the
case, you will be informed and given a revised time-scale at the earliest
opportunity.

If we require any further clarification regarding this request, you will be
notified.

We would advise you that the nature of certain requests may involve payment
of a fee. If this is the case, you will be notified.

Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please
telephone on 0345 456 456 4 asking for the Information Access Office or
email [Cambridgeshire Constabulary request email]

Regards

Donna Anderson
Information Access Office
Cambridgeshire Constabulary

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Dear John

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 0629/2009

In reply to your request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000, dated 11 December 2009.

In order for me to progress with this request, please could you provide
this office with further information in respect of one question only:
question 5 in which you ask:

"5. If your force has any document recording any analysis and/or
consideration of the guidance contained in Annex C to Home Office circular
46/2004 please supply me with a copy."

Please specify more clearly what information you are seeking us to provide
to you since this is potentially a very broad area of research which we may
have to reject on cost since in it's present form we would need to conduct
a manual search of a large number of documents sent/received by a number of
individuals. Much of the information which we hold on the subject of
pension reviews is in respect of named individual pensioners and thus
invoke an exemption under S40 of the Act (Personal Information) or other
appropriate restrictions on disclosure. You may wish to restrict your
question to a smaller timescale; less expansive subject area;or to withdraw
this one question from your request entirely. As you are aware already, we
have previously responded to requests seeking the legal opinions sought by
the Constabulary in regard to Home Office Guidance on these pensions.

After receiving your reply, your request will then be considered and you
will receive the information requested within the statutory timescale of 20
working days as defined by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, subject to
the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third
party.

However, if the requested additional information has not been received by
14 days from the date on this email, I will assume you no longer wish to
proceed with this request and will treat it as withdrawn.

Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please
contact the Information Access Office on telephone number 0345 456 456 4
extension 8164.

Yours sincerely

David Price
Information Access Office
Cambridgeshire Constabulary

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Thank you, John,

I will send the response within the next day or two (weather permitting!).

Regards

David

Information Access Office
Cambridgeshire Constabulary

John Jarman
<request-24511-0c
fa605e@whatdothey To
know.com> [Cambridgeshire Constabulary request email]
cc
04/01/2010 13:06
Subject
Re: Freedom of Information request
- Police Injury Pensions Policy

Dear David,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 0629/09

Many thanks for your message.

On consideration, I can see how the request for information set out
in question 5 could be taken very broadly.

In the circumstances, I am happy to agree with your suggestion to
withdraw Q. 5.

I look forward to your response to the remaining questions in due
course.

Yours faithfully,

John Jarman

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Dear John

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 0629/2009

In reply to your request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000, dated 11th December 2009 and which was received in Cambridgeshire
as follows:

I am seeking certain information related to police injury pensions.

1. Do you have a written policy governing the management and review
of police injury pensions? If you do, please provide me with a
copy.

2. Since August 2004, to date, how many injury pensions have been
reduced when reviewed?

3. Since August 2004, to date, how many injury pensions have been
increased when reviewed?

4. Since August 2004, to date, how many injury pensions have been
reduced to the lowest band when the former officer in receipt of
the pension reached (or had already reached) the age of 65?

5. If your force has any document recording any analysis and/or
consideration of the guidance contained in Annex C to Home Office
circular 46/2004 please supply me with a copy.

6. If your force has any document recording any calculation and/or
projection of the potential budgetary savings and/or financial
impact that might result from adoption of the guidance contained in
Annex C to Home Office circular 46/2004 please supply me with a
copy.

Notes:

In this request, the term ‘document’ should be taken to mean any
record whether in printed or digital form, including reports,
minutes or transcripts of meetings, notes, memoranda, letters, and
email, etc.

Following our request for clarification or rewording of your question 5,
you have withdrawn that one question.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (The Act) requires us to handle all
requests in a manner that is blind to the identity of the requestor. Any
information released in response to a request is regarded as being
published, and therefore in the public domain without caveat.

We have completed all searches within Cambridgeshire Constabulary and
hereby enclose your response.

1. In respect of the policy in this regard we already publish
information about this on our website via our 'Disclosure Log'.

Decision
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (the Act) I have decided to refuse access to the information you have
requested.

Reason For Decision
Section 21 of the Act provides:

Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than
under section 1 is exempt information.

For the purposes of subsection (1), information which is held by a public
authority and does not fall within subsection (2)(b) is not to be regarded
as reasonably accessible to the applicant merely because the information is
available from the public authority itself on request, unless the
information is made available in accordance with the authority’s
publication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined
in accordance with, the scheme.

The information you have requested is available from Cambridgeshire
Constabulary’s Freedom of Information Disclosure Log (May 2008) and can be
located via the following web-link:

https://www.cambs-police.co.uk/about/foi...

I can confirm that V4 is the current version of this policy as at the date
of receipt of your request.

2. 18.

3. 2

4. 4..

5. Question withdrawn. However, please note that we have received
less broad requests for information which we have responded to; see my note
below.

6. No Information held. Cambridgeshire Constabulary has not undertaken
any calculation and/or projection of the potential budgetary savings and/or
financial impact that might result from adoption of the guidance contained
in Annex C to Home Office Circular 46/2004. Neither have we included a
projection of the significant costs of conducting the reviews. For
clarity, budgetary provision for injury award pensions is based on
projecting forward current costs and applying estimated RPI for the
pensions increase elements. Any over- or under- spends on the pensions
account are transferred to or from an ill-health retirement reserve to
provide for the capital costs of ill-health retirements.

In respect of the overall subject of Police Injury Pensions, we have
received and responded to a number of questions surrounding this area. Our
responses are routinely published within our Freedom of Information Act
Disclosure log which can be located via the weblink shown below. I also
append links to a number of previous responses which may prove useful to
you if considering constructing future requests.

Disclosure Log: http://www.cambs-police.co.uk/about/foi/...

Previous Responses:

http://www.cambs-police.co.uk/about/foi/... (Dec
09)
http://www.cambs-police.co.uk/about/foi/... (Oct
09)
http://www.cambs-police.co.uk/about/foi/...
(May 08)
http://www.cambs-police.co.uk/about/foi/...
(Aug 08)
http://www.cambs-police.co.uk/about/foi/... (Dec
09)

This list is not exhaustive!

If you are unhappy with this response, please see the attachment below,
which sets out your rights to appeal.

(See attached file: Complaint Rights new.nov - 09.pdf)

Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please
contact the Information Access Office via email, or on telephone number
0345 456 456 4 extension 8164.

Regards

David Price
Information Access Office
Cambridgeshire Constabulary

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