Regulation 24(2) Police Regulations 2003

Dear Sir or Madam,

My enquiry relates to your force policy for the situation where an
officer has been “temporarily promoted” to a higher rank (i.e. is
not “acting-up”, thereby receiving a “temporary salary” as provided
for in Annex I to Regulation 27 of the Police Regulations 2003),
has in due course reverted to his or her substantive rank, and has
subsequently been promoted again (whether substantively or again
only temporarily).

My request is for:

(a) any force policy or procedure document from which it would be
determined whether such an officer’s salary would take account of
that previous period in the higher rank – in accordance with
Reg.24(2) – or would alternatively be re-started back at the lowest
salary scale point for the higher rank, at the commencement of each
and every period of service in that higher rank; and...

(b) any force policy or procedure document that reported,
considered or reviewed the implications of the decision in Gill v
Chief Constable of Merseyside [Liverpool County Court, judgement
given on 28 August 2007], in which unequivocal judgement was given
against Merseyside Police by HH Judge Platts because the latter
procedure (as referred to above) is unlawful and does not comply
with Regulation 24(2).

Yours faithfully,

William Old

Dear Mr/Ms Berrington,

Unfortunately, your attachment is in a closed, proprietary format
(Microsoft Word .doc) that I cannot read, as there is no version of
Microsoft Office for users of the Linux operating system. Can you
please re-send it in an open format (e.g. Rich Text Format, or
.rtf, which MS Word can produce) or in a proprietary format for
which reader software is available for all mainstream operating
systems (e.g. Adobe's Portable Document Format, .pdf). Thanks you.

Yours sincerely,

William Old

Dear Sir or Madam,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Bedfordshire Police's
handling of my FOI request 'Regulation 24(2) Police Regulations
2003'.

The response states that "Following your request, searches were
conducted at Bedfordshire Police for this information... These
searches failed to locate any records / documents relevant to your
request... Accordingly I have determined that the information to
which you seek access is not held by Bedfordshire Police."

However, in March 2007, the Bedfordshire Police Federation Joint
Branch Board supported legal proceedings in Bedford County Court
against you, based on the provisions of Regulation 24(2), which at
that time was not complied with by Bedfordshire Police. In July
2007, you requested a stay of proceedings pending agreement of
payment of damages, acknowledging that the force had erred in law
on its interpretation of Regulation 24(2).

It is acknowledged that some of these documents will contain
personal information, and cannot be disclosed without redaction:
other documents will be subject of legal privilege. However, many
of the remainder would, I submit, fall into the scope of my
request.

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

Yours sincerely,

William Old

Dear Sharp Kevin,

Thanks for this response.

I have to say that your force's information (that there is to be
new Home Office guidance) comes as a complete surprise, given that
there are now only seven forces left in England and Wales - you are
one of them) that fail to comply with Reg.24(2) in the way that was
determined unequivocally by HH Judge Platts in the above case.

No-one involved with this can quite understand why the Home Office
thinks its guidance can change this legal position, particularly as
there was a joint PNB Circular on this only last year (see
http://www.lge.gov.uk/lge/aio/413360) and an FoI request has been
made of them accordingly - see
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/an...
- I will advise you of the response.

Yours sincerely,

William Old

Dear Mr Sharp,

My follow-up enquiry to the Home Office - quoting your own
statutory response - is at:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/an...

In the meantime, given my specific request in the above note (dated
2 March 2009), and the fact that you have not made any reference to
this in your response, or disclosed any such documents, your
response effectively confirms that Bedfordshire Police has
destroyed every single non-privileged document relating to the
legal proceedings against you in Bedford County Court in March
2007.

This is very unusual, and enquiries will be made with your Police
Authority members to see if they are aware that this has happened.

Yours sincerely,

William Old

Dear Sharp Kevin,

Further to your response dated 8 April, as the result of a FoI
request, at:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/an...

... the Home Office has confirmed that they possess only draft
Determinations to Police Regulations (arising out of negotiations
at PNB) and legally-privileged material relating to Regulation
24(2), both of which are exempt from disclosure under FoI
legislation.

I therefore believe that the Home Office cannot be "about to issue
new National guidelines on acting and temporary ranks" because
there has been no agreement at PNB on this matter, as has already
been pointed out to you in my earlier correspondence.

I therefore wish to draw this to your attention for reconsideration
of your claimed S.22 FoI exemption, because if there are no new
national guidelines, it is not true that "... this policy and
subsequent procedure will be available within the next few months."

Otherwise, I must request a ruling on this withheld material from
the Information commissioner under the statutory provisions for
same.

Yours sincerely,

William Old