Dee Collins role as Course Service Director at College of Policing

The request was partially successful.

Dear West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner,

Please supply all data held in connection with the above posting which should include but is not limited to:

1. All emails between the PCC's office, including the PCC and any of his staff, and the chief constable, or her staff officer or PA.

2. All emails between the PCC's office, including the PCC and any of his staff, and the chief executive of the College of Policing, or his personal assistant or Jo Noakes.

3. Any notes in the PCC's diary, day book or the like concerning the Memorandum of Understanding.

4. Any data that assists in the public's wider understanding over the change in the characterisation of the role as a 'flexible attachment' when it had previously been referred to repeatedly in the local press, and by the West Yorkshire Police (WYP) press office, as a 'secondment'.

5. Any data that assists in the public's understanding over the change in the timescales. It was reported in the local press, and by the WYP press office, that the secondment would begin in January, 2019. It actually began on 3rd December, 2018.

6. Any data that assists in the public's understanding of the rationale behind the PCC allowing the chief constable to take up this post. Albeit on a cost neutral basis.

Given the previous history between requester and this public authority you are respectfully reminded that section 10 of the Act requires you to respond PROMPTLY. On any independent view, these materials should be readily retrievable and require very little preparation for disclosure via the Act.

An article has recently been published on this topic and the materials requested will aid public understanding once they are incorporated into a revised version of the article:

neilwilby.com/2018/12/21/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed/

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby
Web: neilwilby.com

Contact (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

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FOI (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

Classification: NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED

Dear Mr Wilby

Thank you for your request for information, below.

Your request will now be considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). You will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act, subject to the information not being exempt.

In some circumstances the Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner may be unable to achieve this deadline.
If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised time-scale at the earliest opportunity.

Regards

Julie Reid

Julie Reid
Governance Manager
Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner
Tel: 01924 294000
Email: [email address]

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire Ploughland House, 62 George Street, Wakefield, WF1 1DL Visit: www.westyorkshire-pcc.gov.uk for more information.

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Dear FOI (WYPCC),

May I remind you, yet again, that the requirement under section 10 of the Act is to disclose requested information PROMPTLY.

As far as I can trace, Parliament did not make any provision for the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire to be exempt from this requirement.

This is a straightforward, plainly expressed request for disclosure of materials that should all be retrievable in less than 4 hours, in a well run office with appropriate systems in place. The expectation, therefore, given the likely high level of public interest in its outcome is that the request would have been finalised by now. Particularly, as Dee Collins met with the PCC yesterday, at your offices in Wakefield, and she has been requested to expedite this matter.

Can you, therefore, please provide an explanation for the delay?

For ease of reference, I have provided a weblink to the relevant section of the Act.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/200...

Yours sincerely,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby
Web: neilwilby.com

FOI (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

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Dear West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner,

I am writing to request an internal review of West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner's handling of my FOI request 'Dee Collins role as Course Service Director at College of Policing'.

The grounds for complaint are:

1. Section 10 (1) of the Act requires that an information request is finalised PROMPTLY and, in any event, not later than 20 working days after submission. The reviewer is therefore respectfully requested to address this point and explain why the finalisation request was delayed.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/200...

2. To assist the wider world in understanding the reasons for the delay please disclose the internal correspondence relating to this request between the date of its submission (21st December, 2018) and today's date (21st January, 2018). This should, at the very least, reveal the type and quality of searches undertaken to retrieve data captured by the request.

3. Section 17 of the Act requires that a refusal notice be given PROMPTLY or not later than 20 working days after the request is received in respect of information not disclosed and where an exemption is to be relied upon.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/200...

None of the requested information has been disclosed and there is no s17 refusal notice, or explanation given for its absence.

As I have a genuinely held belief that this latest breach of statute is a deliberate subversion of the Act, and a blatant attempt to cover-up false utterances by the chief constable, by Mark Burns-Williamson, a complaint will be made to the Police and Crime Panel tomorrow.

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

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby
Web: neilwilby.com

Contact (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

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of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire.

 

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to your message within 10 working days but please be aware that this
mailbox receives a high volume of e-mails on a daily basis.

 

In the meantime, you may be able to find the information you are seeking
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[1]www.westyorkshire-pcc.gov.uk.

 

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FOI (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

5 Attachments

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Dear Mr Wilby

 

Please find attached a response to your recent request for information
under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Regards

 

Julie Reid

 

 

Julie Reid

Governance Manager

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner

Tel:  01924 294000

Email:  [1][email address]

 

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire Ploughland
House, 62 George Street, Wakefield, WF1 1DL Visit:
[2]www.westyorkshire-pcc.gov.uk for more information.

 

[3]cid:image003.jpg@01D4B33B.8825FBA0

 

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Dear FOI (WYPCC),

Please accept this communication as formal notice of a second internal review request (IRR). The first IRR was submitted on 21st January, 2019 and remains unacknowledged or unanswered. As was my communication of 8th January, 2019:

1. As one comes to expect from this particular public authority, this is a sub-optimal finalisation of what was a straightforward request under the Act.

2. For clarity, and for the sake of good order, a seperate pdf should have been provided for each of Q's 1. and 2 that answered each of the questions.

3. The number of emails disclosed in response to Q's 1 and 2 appear, to my trained eye, to be incomplete and do not satisfy the terms of the request. Accordingly, the PCC is required to disclose the nature and extent of the searches undertaken.

4. This should also be informed by disclosure of the WYPCC internal emails relating to this request from the date it was submitted to the date it was finalised. You may wish to treat this as a new request, or finalise as part of the IRR. I am content either way.

5. Disclosure has been redacted that appears, in some cases, to be outwith the Act and more to do with concealing an embarassing truth to this particular requester. The PCC is reminded that disclosure under the Act is applicant blind and to the wider world.

6. No data has been provided in respect of questions 3, 4, 5 and 6. There is no explanation as to whether information is held, or otherwise. It is almost certain that information of this class is held. It would be an extraordinarily lax way to run the office of a PCC if there were no such records.

7. No section 17 refusal notice has been provided, either, for Q's 3, 4, 5 and 6. This repeats previous failings by the PCC, in other requests, and informs the independent reviewer that the delegated officer finalising the request still does not understand the PCC's burden under the Act, and probably never has (see also para 8 below).

8. The Appeal Procedure you have set out is not in accordance with either section 45 of the Act, or the College of Policing's Authorised Professional Practice (APP). The requirement is for the request to be considered afresh by a senior information rights practitioner who has had no involvement with the original request. In almost every other policing body, with whom I routinely deal, this is a lawyer. You are counselled most strongly to bring your procedures into line with the Act and APP. To not do so almost guarantees a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office. This IRR request has been drafted with that very much in mind.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby
Web: neilwilby.com

FOI (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

This is an automatic acknowledgement. Thank you for contacting the Office
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within 10 working days but please be aware that this mailbox receives a
high volume of e-mails on a daily basis.

 

In the meantime, you may be able to find the information you are seeking
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[1]www.westyorkshire-pcc.gov.uk.

 

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FOI (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

Classification: NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED

Dear Mr Wilby

Thank you for your emails of 8th, 21st and 24th January. Your requests for internal review will be passed to members of the Joint Independent Audit and Ethics Committee in line with our policy and we will respond to you in due course.

Regards

Julie Reid

Julie Reid
Governance Manager
Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner
Tel: 01924 294000
Email: [email address]

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire Ploughland House, 62 George Street, Wakefield, WF1 1DL Visit: www.westyorkshire-pcc.gov.uk for more information.

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FOI (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

2 Attachments

Classification: NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED

 

Dear Mr Wilby

 

Your requests for internal review of 21 and 24 January have been
considered by two members of the Joint Independent Audit and Ethics
Committee in line with the appeal procedure of the Office of the Police
and Crime Commissioner (OPCC).

 

The members noted your concern that this request was not finalised earlier
and considered all the documentation held by the OPCC, including internal
correspondence between the date of the request and the date of the
disclosure, and the timeline for the response. 

 

Members reflected on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance
in relation to S10 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI Act) and, in
particular, paragraph 25 of that guidance which states that ‘an authority
which provides its response close to, or on, the final day of the 20
working day limit ought to be able to both account for, and justify, the
length of time taken to complete the request’.   In this case members were
satisfied that the response of the OPCC, on the 20^th working day after
the request was received, was reasonable under the circumstances, taking
into account the public holiday period, workload and annual leave
commitments for staff in the OPCC and the third party consultation which
was necessary before the request could be finalised.

 

Members were sorry that you felt the disclosure was ‘sub-optimal’ and
reviewed the disclosure which was made.   Members were satisfied that this
was a comprehensive disclosure of the information which is held and noted
that redactions were applied only to information which was outside of your
request or which was personal information and exempt. 

 

Members were satisfied that the disclosure was made in accordance with the
FOI Act and that the OPCC had discharged its duty appropriately.

 

Upon review and reflection members accepted that the disclosure ought to
have provided separate PDFs to answer each of your questions so as to be
more helpful to the reader and recommended that this practice be
incorporated into the way the OPCC deal with future FOI requests.

 

Members considered your comments about the adequacy of the OPCC internal
review process but noted the ICO decision, reference FS50662577, which
concluded ‘The Commissioner considered the representations from the
complainant about what he regarded as deficiencies in the internal review
process but did not see in them evidence that the guidelines set out in
the code had not been followed.   The internal review process, including
the choice of reviewers and their qualifications, is a matter for the PCC
alone.   Accordingly she did not find that the PCC had breached the code
of practice and did not uphold that aspect of the complaint’.

 

You have a right to make a further appeal to the ICO should you remain
dissatisfied and you can contact the ICO at Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, or via ico.org.uk.

 

Regards

 

Julie Reid

 

Julie Reid

Governance Manager

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner

Tel:  01924 294000

Email:  [1][West Yorkshire PCC request email]

 

Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire Ploughland
House, 62 George Street, Wakefield, WF1 1DL Visit:
[2]www.westyorkshire-pcc.gov.uk for more information.

 

[3][IMG]

 

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Dear FOI (WYPCC),

A complaint has been lodged with the Information Commissioner's Office.

You will, no doubt, hear from them in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby
Web: neilwilby.com

FOI (WYPCC), West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

This is an automatic acknowledgement. Thank you for contacting the Office
of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire. This mailbox is
monitored during normal office hours only. We will respond to your message
within 10 working days but please be aware that this mailbox receives a
high volume of e-mails on a daily basis.

 

In the meantime, you may be able to find the information you are seeking
on the Police and Crime Commissioner's website
[1]www.westyorkshire-pcc.gov.uk.

 

References

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