Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Thank you for your email received today in which you make a request for information that Northumbria Police may hold in accordance with the Freedom Of Information Act 2000

We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response should be provided to you by 18/01/2018 which is in accordance with the legislation.

Yours sincerely

Information Management Unit

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Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

Thank you for your e mail dated 17^th December 2017 in which you made a
request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria
Police.

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of
access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority
(including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has
included the following in its latest report into Northumbria Police;

"We noted that gifts, hospitality, declarations of business interests and
details of pay and rewards have not been updated since 2015. "

HMICFRS, within its "Areas for improvement", stated; "The force should
ensure that it publishes up-to-date information on gifts, hospitality,
business interests and pay for all senior staff. The report;
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/...

Under the FOIA 2000 I would like to know;

1. What is the reason why Northumbria Police have not been publishing all
information gifts, hospitality, declarations of business interests and
details of pay and rewards during the previous 2 years?

2. Will Northumbria Police be publishing all, as above, information dating
back to 2015. If not, why not?

3. I would also like full details of all gifts, hospitality, declarations
of business interests and details of pay and rewards between 17 August and
17 December 2017. Those that relate to all Northumbria Police Chief
officers .

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I
provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted within
Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested
is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

1. No information held.  This is not recorded. 

2. This has already been addressed in you previous request, 1242/17
refers.

3.For information not addressed at point 2:

This information is recorded in financial years and is therefore published
as such.   As it is published as a matter of course the below exemption is
applicable

S22 Future publication

Information not already published is going to be in the future therefore
the below exemption is relevant for those parts.

Section 22(1)(a) - Information Intended for future publication

(1) Information is exempt information if -

(a) the information is held by the public authority with a view to its
publication, by the authority or any other person, at some future date
(whether determined or not),

(b) the information was already held with a view to such publication at
the time the request for information was made, and

(c) it is reasonable in all circumstances that the information should be
withheld from disclosure until the date referred to in paragraph.

This exemption requires us to apply a Public Interest Test to decide if
the information you require should be released ahead of the scheduled
report.

Public Interest Test

Factors Favouring Disclosure:-

Accountability, Public Awareness & Debate

Disclosure of information would enable the public to be better informed of
such information, as this enables more accurate and relevant public
comment and debate to take place.

Factors Favouring Non-Disclosure:-

The exemption engaged in this case specifically requires us to simply look
at the public interest in delaying the release of information that will
automatically be disclosed in the future.  As it is known that this
information will be published at a later date, to gather the information
prior to the requirement to do so for the next scheduled publication, in
order to answer this request would not be an efficient use of resources
and finance as it would divert staff from their core duties and would
involve a disproportionate use of resources, particularly at this time of
economic concerns.

Balance Test

It is acknowledged that both accountability and public awareness are
enhanced by the disclosure of this type of information.  However, this
will be achieved through the publication of the intended information.

The Section 21 and, in this case Section 22 exemptions were specifically
laid down by parliament to benefit those authorities who proactively
publish information.  To constantly produce new and up to date elements of
currently published or information intended for future publication in an
attempt to satisfy an additional need outside of the annual schedule would
render these exemptions less effective and remove the benefits of
proactive publication.  For this reason it would be an inappropriate use
of resources to carry out further research to satisfy your request.

Therefore, at this time, for the reasons outlined above, the public
interest is met by the scheduled publication of this data. 

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a
specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an
indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another.
Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the
procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses
between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative
purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual
property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be
strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not
re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

You may be interested to know that Northumbria Police routinely publish
information via the Disclosure Log. The aim of the Disclosure Log is to
promote openness and transparency by voluntarily placing information into
the public arena.

The Disclosure Log contains copies of some of the information that has
been disclosed by Northumbria Police in response to requests made under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Whilst it is not possible to publish all responses we will endeavour to
publish those where we feel that the information disclosed is in the wider
public interest.

The Disclosure Log will be updated once responses have been sent to the
requester.

I have provided the relevant link below.

[1]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...

How to complain

If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have
handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue
informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our
complaints procedure, attached below

[2]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...

If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and
reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain
whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.

Yours sincerely

Michael Cleugh

Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor

Direct Dial: 0191 2956941

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References

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