Business interests and secondary employment

Corporate Information Management Department

Force Headquarters, PO Box 37, Valley Road,

Portishead, Bristol, BS20 8QJ

Facsimile 01275 814667

Private
Dear Independent Police Support Group
[FOI #36299 email] Our Reference 318/10
Your reference
Date 1st June 2010
Dear Independent Police Support Group

Thank you for your request for information dated 30th May 2010 relating to
business interests and secondary employment of police officers and police
staff at Avon and Somerset Constabulary. This request will be dealt with
under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your request will now be considered and 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 or containing a reference to a third
party. In some circumstances Avon and Somerset Constabulary 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.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information you request. If this is the case you will be informed and
the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment
from you. If you choose not to make a payment then your request will
remain unanswered.

Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to
another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest
possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Avon and Somerset Constabulary.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Officer

Freedom of Information Officer
Corporate Information Management Department

Please note;

1. Requests and responses may be published on Avon and Somerset
Constabulary's website (within 24 hours), some of which may
contain a link to additional information, which may provide
you with further clarification.
2. Whilst we may verbally discuss your request with you in order
to seek clarification, all other communication should be made
in writing.
3. Avon and Somerset Constabulary provides you with the right to
request a re-examination of your case under its review
procedure.

Corporate Information Management Department

Force Headquarters, PO Box 37, Valley Road,

Portishead, Bristol, BS20 8QJ

Facsimile 01275 814667

Private
Independent Police Support Group
[FOI #36299 email] Our Reference 318/10
Your reference
Date 04 June 2010

Dear Independent Police Support Group

I write in connection with your request for information dated 30^th May
requesting a list of business interests and secondary employment for
police officers and police staff. Please include type of business and rank
or grade of member of staff

Your request for information has now been considered and I am not obliged
to supply the information you have requested.

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Avon and
Somerset Constabulary, when refusing to provide such information (because
the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice
which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and
(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption
applies.

The exemptions applicable to this information are section 21 –
information reasonably accessible by other means and section 12 – fees
limit.

The requested information in respect of police officers can be located on
our website, [1]www.avonandsomerset.police.uk, select documents and
information on the left, then freedom of information, then classes of
information, then Register of business interests. Alternatively you can
use the search tool, or the following link
[2]http://10.10.1.251/information/foi/class....
This information was recorded as of 2008. For additional information some
of these interests are those who own a second homes or holiday lets etc.
More up to date information is intended for future publication.

No central record is currently held concerning police staff members with
second jobs. Therefore in order to provide you with a response to your
request, a manual search of every employee’s personnel record would need
to be undertaken to establish whether they had recorded a second job. The
cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we
are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving
the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the
Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It
is estimated that it would cost at least £450 to comply with your
request.

In accordance with the Act, this letter represents a Refusal Notice for
this particular request.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Avon and Somerset Constabulary

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Officer

Freedom of Information Officer
Corporate Information Management Department

Please note;

1. Requests and responses may be published on Avon and Somerset
Constabulary’s website (within 24 hours), some of which may
contain a link to additional information, which may provide
you with further clarification.
2. Whilst we may verbally discuss your request with you in order
to seek clarification, all other communication should be made
in writing.
3. Avon and Somerset Constabulary provides you with the right to
request a re-examination of your case under its review
procedure (copy enclosed).

<<A&S Appeals Procedure.doc>>

References

Visible links
1. http://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/
2. http://10.10.1.251/information/foi/class...

Corporate Information Management Department

Force Headquarters, PO Box 37, Valley Road,

Portishead, Bristol, BS20 8QJ

Facsimile 01275 814667

Private
Independent Police Support Group
[FOI #36299 email] Our Reference 318/10
Your reference
Date 07.06.10
Dear Independent Police Support Group

I write in receipt of your email dated 5th June 2010 requesting an
internal review regarding the response to your Freedom of Information
request 318/10.

This request has been forwarded to our internal review panel who will
respond to you, in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Officer

Freedom of Information Officer
Corporate Information Management Department

Mr Ian Marsh

Corporate Information Management Department

PO Box 37, Valley Road, Portishead, Bristol BS20 8QJ

Telephone 01275 816309 Facsimile 01275 814565

Office Hours: 8 am - 5 pm

Our Ref: NDH/IM/LW Your Ref: 02 July 2010

Independent Police Support Group

[email address]

Dear Sir/Madam

Freedom of Information Request 318/10 - Appeal

Thank you for your e-mail dated 5^th June 2010 concerning your request for
an internal review of the response to your earlier Freedom of Information
Act question. This was in relation to "business interests and secondary
employment" of both Police Officers and Police staff, by rank or grade.

In respect of Police Staff, there is neither a national or local
requirement to maintain these details in any form of list or register and
as such this information is unfortunately not readily available. To
collate this information for you and to be able to quality assure the
data, we would need to review all Police Staff Human Resource files,
currently just a little under 3000, then extract the relevant reports and
confirm with the individuals concerned that they are still engaged with
that particular activity. As I hope that you will appreciate, this would
be a significant exercise to complete.

Although I regret that we are unable to provide this information to you, I
can assure you that it is not a reflection on the Constabulary's position
on public accountability, rather it is simply a pragmatic approach to the
use of police resources. I therefore up-hold the application of the fees
limit in this case.

In respect of Police Officers, you are already aware that information is
published on the Constabulary web-site but it is currently out of date.
This is now being addressed and the target date for publication of the
revised data is week commencing 30/08/2010. Regrettably I am unable to
provide the data at this stage and as such the exemption under section 22
of the FOI Act applies at this time.

I apologise for the short delay in responding to you over these matters
but I hope that the foregoing addresses the issues raised and has added a
little further context to the reasons for not being able to supply the
data for Police staff.

Yours sincerely

Ian Marsh

Deputy Head of Corporate Information Management Department

E-mail address: [email address]