Dear City of London Police,

In a response to a FOIA request on here you provided a link to this document https://ted.europa.eu/TED/notice/udl?uri... which specifies in section V.5 that up to 40% of the £33.000.000 main contract is to be sub contracted, and that portion is specified as "The ‘Action Fraud’ element which comprises the initial capture of fraud reports from fraud victims and is carried out through the call center element will be sub-contracted. "

So £13,200,000 is apparently being paid to "Concentrix" but there is no information regarding the sub contract apparently available to specify what if any service they are required to provide.

Please provide a copy of, or links to where a copy of, the sub contract covering their service may be accessed and viewed by the public, along with any details regarding the author(s) responsible for the provision of the contract if known.

In addition, on the "Action Fraud" website page here, https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/press-... , it specifies under the Additional Information section "Action Fraud is the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and financially-motivated cyber crime. It does not have investigation powers, the reports taken by Action Fraud are sent to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) who collate and analyse intelligence on fraud, who then make the decision to send crimes to law enforcement. "

In light of that statement and the fact that Fraud is a criminal offence and is being reported as such, can you please provide any information held in respect to the following questions.

1 If Action Fraud is the National reporting centre for "fraud and financially-motivated cyber crime" can you please provide any information held regarding the reporting of Non Financially Motivated Cyber Crime i.e. what is the avenue for reporting it and where is that information available to the public?

2 Since Action Fraud have no Investigation powers why are all fraud and financially motivated crimes being directed to a non investigatory body?

3 On this page https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/news/a... Action Fraud stated to the world that "Action Fraud today becomes part of the City of London Police" and that page is dated 1 April 2014

The City Of London Police are covered by the requirements of the Police Reform Act 2002 which states that it makes provision for “ other persons serving with, or carrying out functions in relation to, the police; to amend police powers and to provide for the exercise of police powers by persons who are not police officers;” which would support the contention that Action Fraud is also bound by the requirements of the Police Reform Act 2002.

Please therefore provide any information held which specifies what if any provisions of the PRA 2002 are indeed applicable to Action Fraud and also which person is responsible for ensuring that the staff at Action Fraud are in compliance?

4 The requirements under the PRA 2002 mandate that any allegation or complaint made to “police” would require that the organisation in receipt of the allegation / complaint should make a recording decision within 10 working days, and that decision should be communicated formally to the originator within a further 5 working days.

As previously specified Action Fraud are the recipient of all criminal allegations of Fraud and financially motivated cyber crime from the public.

Please therefore provide any documentation which gives authority for Action Fraud to ignore the requirements to provide a recording decision in relation to every report made to them, and instead to provide a standard message that the originator will be contacted in 8-12 weeks time by the NFIB, a decision which is not a recording decision but simply a decision to pass the original allegation to the investigatory body.

5a Please provide any records held regarding complaints submitted regarding Action Fraud, to be broken down as per the complaints document here https://data.actionfraud.police.uk/cms/w... along with any internal complaints investigation processes held by Action Fraud or the CoLP.

5b Please specify any information held which details how many complaints have been recorded, along with any division as to type etc.

5c How many of those complaints were dealt with by Action Fraud staff within the 20 working day time limit specified, and how many were dealt with by Action Fraud staff outside that time limit.

5d How many of those complaints were dealt with by CoLP staff within the 20 working day time limit and how many were dealt with by CoLP staff outside that time limit.

5e Of the complaints addressed by Action Fraud or CoLP staff under 5c and 5d how many complaints were then referred by the originator to PSD at CoLP and any timescale applicable for this complaints process within PSD.

6 In the acknowledgement emails sent out by Action Fraud upon receipt of my complaint, which bear the name Pauline Smith, it stated ” Please accept our apologies for the matters you have raised. Each call made by yourself will be listened to by a senior member of staff. This will then be investigated via our internal processes for appropriate action to be taken. “

A subsequent update then went on to specify “ We would again like to reiterate that your complaints have been taken seriously and dealt with accordingly via Action Fraud's internal processes. We would further like to advise that we have been notified by the Action Fraud Service Development Manager that any issues that you would like to raise should be raised to your Specific Point of Contact, being Ian Younger.”

In response to a FOIA request sent directly to Mr Ian Younger I requested a copy of the “Internal Processes” for the investigation of complaints only to be told by both Mr Younger and the FOIA Dept of the CoLP that no such processes exist.

Please disclose if held any information regarding any “internal Processes” and or any information which would explain why the titular head of the action fraud organisation is signing documents referring to a complaints investigation process that does not in fact exist.

Yours faithfully,

W Hunter

Dear Mr Lockyear,

You appear to be deliberately misinterpreting the original request in respect to question 5 in a feeble attempt to cite section 12 exemption to this request long after it should have been responded to under the requirement of law.

I was not requesting the content of every complaint made to Action Fraud, only the number of recorded complaints and their disposition because, as we are both fully aware, the content of the complaint is personal information which is not disclose able under the FOIA, only under Subject Access allegedly, I say allegedly as I have still not received my documentation from the CoLP requested under subject access in May of this year.

5A requests the total number of complaints and copies of the Action Fraud and City of London Police complaints policies / procedures under which they will be processed / investigated.

5b asks for any information regarding the types or categories of complaint if the total is broken down at all.

5c asks how many of those were resolved internally to Action Fruad by Action Fraud staff within the 20 working day limit specified here https://data.actionfraud.police.uk/cms/w... and how many were addressed by action fraud staff over that time limit.

5d asks how many complaints transferred to CoLP to be addressed were dealt with within the first 20 working days and how many exceeded that time limit

5e asks of the total number of complaints complaints dealt with by both parts of the organisation how many were referred by the originator to PSD at CoLP and to provide the timescale for any subsequent process.

As all records are collated on computer, and the very complaint process is undertaken by only two parts of the same organisation it should be remarkably simple for the two systems to be interrogated to obtain this information and it therefore should not exceed the costs limit specified.

I would point out that whilst your attempt to block the release of information under section 12 ignores the requirements of section 12 within the act itself.

Section 1 of the FOIA specifies

1 General right of access to information held by public authorities.

(1)Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled—

(a)to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and

(b)if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him.

(2)Subsection (1) has effect subject to the following provisions of this section and to the provisions of sections 2, 9, 12 and 14.

Section 12 specifies

12Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.

(1)Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

(2)Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.

The provision under section 12 (2) clearly specifies that it does not exempt the public authority from it's obligation under 1(1)(a) , i.e (a)to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request

As such your response, after 47 working days, has failed to confirm or deny that the information requested is held in breach of section 1(1)(a) of the act.

Any reliance on an exemption is required to be disclosed within the 20 working day time limit for compliance under the act and not after twice the lawful time limit has expired.

I therefore class your failure to respond within the lawful time limit and subsequent attempt to misrepresent the request to apply a section 12 exemption after 47 working days to be further evidence of a deliberate breach of section 77 of the FOIA.

The requirement of the FOIA is that the information must be released to the requester promptly and in any event not later than the 20th working day after receipt as specified in section 10 of the act.

10 Time for compliance with request.

(1)Subject to subsections (2) and (3), a public authority must comply with section 1(1) promptly and in any event not later than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt.

"In any event" is defined as "regardless of what happens" or in other words there can be no excuse for failing to comply with the requirement of law.

The police operate to enforce the law under the dictate that Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorance of the law is no excuse to prosecution.

The City of London Police are fully aware of the requirements of the law but have chosen to simply ignore it in the certain belief that it does not apply to them, and done so in this public forum.

Kindly provide the information requested and required by law to be disclosed on or before the 25 October this year forthwith.

Yours sincerely,

W Hunter