Financing Harassment Act investigations

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, West Midlands Police should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear West Midlands Police,

1.Please confirm the amount of resources diverted to each Harassment Warning investigation.

2. Please confirm the total amount of resources spent yearly on all Harassment Warning investigations.

3. A previous FOIA shows that £93000 was spent on Common Purpose Courses http://www.cpexposed.com/documents/CP_Po... . Firstly, please confirm that this FOIA is an original response from yourselves and secondly please confirm how much money has been spent on Common Purpose Courses since 2008.

4. Please provide the content of these common purposes courses.

5. Please confirm how many conduct complaints made by members of the public have been upheld by the Professional Standards Department. Please provide a yearly breakdown of the date of complaint, age and ethnicity of the complainant, type of complaint and whether they complaints were dismissed or upheld.

6. How many of the complaints in [5] that were dismissed appealed to the IPCC.

7. Please confirm the yearly number of wrongful arrests [ for the last 10 years] and the resources required in these arrests.

8. http://www.christian.org.uk/news/birming... details a worrying case. Please provide West Midlands Police press release in this case and the judgment by the court.

Yours faithfully,

Mat

Dear Mr Smith

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

Thank you for your request for information, received 11 April 2011.

Because your request concerns a number of different topics, for
administrative purposes it has been split into 5 separate requests as
below:

4559/11 - Questions 1 and 2 (Harassment Warnings)

4564/11 - Questions 3 and 4 (Common Purpose)

4565/11 - Questions 5 and 6 (Complaints)

4566/11 - Question 7 (Wrongful Arrests)

4567/11 - Question 8 (Press release regarding arrest)

Your requests are being considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days, as defined by the Act, subject
to the application of any statutory exemptions. Where consideration is
being given to the application of any exemptions the 20 working day
timescale may be extended under the terms of the Act to a period
considered reasonable depending on the nature and circumstances of your
request. In such cases you will be notified and, where possible, a revised
time-scale will be indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with
your request at the earliest opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information requested, where the request exceeds the statutory limit.
In such cases you will be informed in writing and the 20 working day
timescale will be suspended until we receive payment from you or your
request is modified and /or reduced. If you chose not to make full payment
or modify your request then the request will remain unanswered.

Your request may require either full or partial transfer to another public
authority. You will be informed if your request is transferred.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Unit

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Dear Mr Smith

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

Thank you for your two requests for information received 09 April 20111
and 10 April 2011 concerning Harassment Warnings, Common Purpose and
complaints. This request has been handled under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000.

These two requests have been given 6 reference numbers for ease of
processing, but have been aggregated into one request for the purpose of
determining our obligations with respect to Section 12 of the Act. Should
any one part of a request go over the cost limit then the whole requested
is considered to exceed the appropriate limit.

An officerÂ*s time is not allocated or recorded in such a way to allow us
to easily locate and extract any data, should anything be recorded
regarding resources for harassment warnings. To find what data we have
which would be relevant to the request would require a manual search of
every officerÂ*s notebook. Such a search would undoubtedly be
incomplete, but in any case it would exceed the appropriate limit.

This means that the cost of compliance with your request is above the
amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e. the cost of
confirming or denying that the information is held would exceed the
appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act
2000. For West Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450,
as prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.

A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is
relying on a claim that section 12 applies must, within the time for
complying with Section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that
fact. In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter
acts as a refusal notice.

However rather than refusing your request outright at this stage, I would
like to explore with you how West Midlands Police may best assist you to
request relevant information which we may hold. We could see whether we
can supply the following:

A copy of any Force-wide Harassment Warning letter, if any exists;

Recorded information that we hold regarding the authenticity of the
document you cite regarding Common Purpose;

Expenditure on Common Purpose since 2008;

The number of complaints received since 2005 by age and ethnic appearance
of the complainant, description of complaint and complaint result;

The number of civil claims for wrongful arrests that have been settled in
each of the last five years;

A copy of any Press Release regarding the specific wrongful arrest case
you mention, should any have been issued.

If you wish to refine your request in any other way please let me know and
we will investigate what can be provided.

You may wish to approach the court for any court judgement.

To enable us to proceed with your request I would be grateful if you could
confirm whether you wish us to provide the information outlined above (or
whether you wish to refine it in another way). After receiving your reply,
your request will be considered and you will receive a response within the
statutory timescale of 20 working days, as defined by the Act, subject to
the application of any statutory exemptions. If you chose not to respond
then your request will remain unanswered.

Your attention is drawn to your right to request a re-examination of your
case under West Midlands Police review procedure, which can be found at:

http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/pdf/F...

Please note that such an appeal must be received within six months of the
date of this correspondence.

If you require any further information, then please do not hesitate to
contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Carl Bird

Freedom of Information Unit

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Dear b_foi,

That would be fine. Perhaps you may ask the police force to record the data so it is easily accessible.

Yours sincerely,

Mat

Dear Mr Smith

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

Thank you for your request for information, received 12th May 2011.

Your request is being considered and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days, as defined by the Act, subject to the application of any statutory exemptions. Where consideration is being given to the application of any exemptions the 20 working day timescale may be extended under the terms of the Act to a period considered reasonable depending on the nature and circumstances of your request. In such cases you will be notified and, where possible, a revised time-scale will be indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with your request at the earliest opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of the information requested, where the request exceeds the statutory limit. In such cases you will be informed in writing and the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment from you or your request is modified and /or reduced. If you chose not to make full payment or modify your request then the request will remain unanswered.

Your request may require either full or partial transfer to another public authority. You will be informed if your request is transferred.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Unit

Dear b_foi,

Yes that is fine.

Yours sincerely,

Mat

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