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 03/09/2019 which is in accordance with the legislation.

Yours sincerely

Information Management Unit

www.northumbria.police.uk | www.northumbria-pcc.gov.uk

'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'

'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect the communities we serve.'

show quoted sections

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

Thank you for your email dated 2 August 2019 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:

1.     Please provide any information regarding what if any policies /
procedures or legislation applies to your officers when investigating
allegations of crime.  In particular please confirm whether officers are
required to comply with the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996
part 2

(https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/199... ) and / or any other
policy or statute which refers to the investigation of criminal offences.

2.     Please also confirm whether Northumbria Police are required to
comply with the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime

(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...
)

3.     Where employees of Northumbria Police have failed to comply with
these two and indeed any other applicable policies or lawful requirements
and / or have acted in opposition to the specified requirements, please
specify any offence / infraction which may have been committed stating
which person / organisation needs to be informed and how to report these
issues.

4.     If it is found that an officer has deliberately failed to correctly
gather relevant evidence and acted in a manner to ignore the crime to the
extent that it would constitute an attempt to pervert the course of
justice, please supply any information on how to report this matter and
whether it would be dealt with as an allegation of a crime committed by
the officer, or as appears standard as a simple complaint against police.

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 with both the
Crime and Professional Standards Departments of 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.     Yes - Northumbria Police has to comply with the Criminal Procedure
and Investigations Act 1996 and follows the procedures as outlined within
the Authorised Professional Practice (College of Policing) for the
investigation of criminal offences and information management.

2.     Yes - Northumbria Police has a responsibility to provide victims of
crime with their key entitlements as detailed under the Victims Code of
Practice.

3.     Each individual case/complaint would have to be considered on its’
merits by the Appropriate Authority within Professional Standards
Department.  Depending on the extent of any failings, this could range
from being proportionately dealt with as a performance issue or for cases
that involve a breach of the standards of professional behaviour,
progression could be via misconduct or gross misconduct.  Please see the
following link for advice on reporting an incident:
[1]https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...

4.     Each individual case/complaint would have to be considered on its’
merits by the Appropriate Authority within Professional Standards
Department.  Please see the following link for advice on reporting an
incident: [2]https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...

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.

[3]https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/about...

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.

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

[NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED]

'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'

'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality
Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect
the communities we serve.'

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE The information
contained in this message and any attachment(s) is confidential and
intended only for the attention of the named organisation or individual to
whom it is addressed. The message may contain information that is covered
by legal, professional or other privilege. No mistake in transmission is
intended to waive or compromise any such privilege. This message has been
sent over public networks and the sender cannot be held responsible for
its integrity. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any
disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken in reliance of the
information contained herein is strictly prohibited, and is contrary to
the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988 and of the
Data Protection Act, 2018. Any views expressed are those of the sender
and, unless specifically stated, do not necessarily represent the view of
Northumbria Police. We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage
sustained as a result of software viruses. It is your responsibility to
carry out such virus checking as is necessary. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender by e-mail at once and delete
the message immediately. For more information about Northumbria Police
please visit our website - http://www.northumbria.police.uk

References

Visible links
1. https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...
2. https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...
3. https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/about...

You request for internal review is noted.
A response will be supplied as soon as the review is concluded.

Please use the FOI reference number, as supplied, in any further correspondence

Regards
FOI team

'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'

'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect the communities we serve.'

show quoted sections

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

Thank you for your correspondence dated 4 September 2019 in which you
requested a review of the response to your 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 by a Public Authority (including the Police)
subject to certain limitations and exemptions

You asked for:

1.     Please provide any information regarding what if any policies /
procedures or legislation applies to your officers when investigating
allegations of crime. In particular please confirm whether officers are
required to comply with the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996
part 2

([1]https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/199... ) and / or any
other policy or statute which refers to the investigation of criminal
offences.

2.     Please also confirm whether Northumbria Police are required to
comply with the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime

([2]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...
)

3.     Where employees of Northumbria Police have failed to comply with
these two and indeed any other applicable policies or lawful requirements
and / or have acted in opposition to the specified requirements, please
specify any offence / infraction which may have been committed stating
which person / organisation needs to be informed and how to report these
issues.

4.     If it is found that an officer has deliberately failed to correctly
gather relevant evidence and acted in a manner to ignore the crime to the
extent that it would constitute an attempt to pervert the course of
justice, please supply any information on how to report this matter and
whether it would be dealt with as an allegation of a crime committed by
the officer, or as appears standard as a simple complaint against police.

In response we advised:

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with both the
Crime and Professional Standards Departments of 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.     Yes - Northumbria Police has to comply with the Criminal Procedure
and Investigations Act 1996 and follows the procedures as outlined within
the Authorised Professional Practice (College of Policing) for the
investigation of criminal offences and information management.

2.     Yes - Northumbria Police has a responsibility to provide victims of
crime with their key entitlements as detailed under the Victims Code of
Practice.

3.     Each individual case/complaint would have to be considered on its’
merits by the Appropriate Authority within Professional Standards
Department. Depending on the extent of any failings, this could range from
being proportionately dealt with as a performance issue or for cases that
involve a breach of the standards of professional behaviour, progression
could be via misconduct or gross misconduct. Please see the following link
for advice on reporting an incident:
[3]https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...

4.     Each individual case/complaint would have to be considered on its’
merits by the Appropriate Authority within Professional Standards
Department. Please see the following link for advice on reporting an
incident: [4]https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...

Your request for Internal review stated:

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information
reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Northumbria Police's
handling of my FOI request 'Minimum standards for the Primary
Investigation of Crime'.

It has taken Mr Cleugh over 20 working days, the time legally required for
compliance under the FOIA to provide information which it would seem could
have been obtained in less than 5 minutes with a simple telephone call.

My request specified

1.         Please provide any information regarding what if any policies /
procedures or legislation applies to your officers when investigating
allegations of crime.

And

In particular please confirm whether officers are required to comply with
the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 part 2
(https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/199... ) and / or any other policy
or statute which refers to the investigation of criminal offences.

Mr Cleugh’s response is simply that

1.     Yes - Northumbria Police has to comply with the Criminal Procedure
and Investigations Act 1996 and follows the procedures as outlined within
the Authorised Professional Practice (College of Policing) for the
investigation of criminal offences and information management.

So in relation to the question asked as part one of my request Mr Cleugh
has responded that the only policy / procedure / legislation which applies
to Northumbria Police officers investigating crime is the CPIA 1996 and
they also follow the procedures outlined within the APP (College of
Policing) for the investigation of criminal offences.

The APP has a website here, https://www.app.college.police.uk/ , and there
is a page regarding investigations here
https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-co...

process/ which is one of many.

Unfortunately as with this page
https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-co...
there are 8 links to reference material applying to investigations which
are not available to the general public as they are only accessible by
police users.

My question asked for all the information applicable to investigations by
Northumbria police as well as all policies and or statutes which apply and
yet there is not a single NP policy defining the requirements of NP
officers in the course of their employment?.

Your response has failed to provide the information requested and has
simply confirmed the one statutory requirement under the CPIA 1996 whilst
pointing to a whole website which contains relevant information not
available to the public but subject to this request.

My second question,

2.     Please also confirm whether Northumbria Police are required to
comply with the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime
(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk... ) was responded to in the
affirmative with

2.     Yes - Northumbria Police has a responsibility to provide victims of
crime with their key entitlements as detailed under the Victims Code of
Practice.

My third question

3.     Where employees of Northumbria Police have failed to comply with
these two and indeed any other applicable policies or lawful requirements
and / or have acted in opposition to the specified requirements, please
specify any offence / infraction which may have been committed stating
which person / organisation needs to be informed and how to report these
issues.

Clearly requests “please specify ANY OFFENCE which may have been
committed, and for clarity in relation to any such offence how any such
offence must be reported and to whom.

Your response

3.     Each individual case/complaint would have to be considered on its’
merits by the Appropriate Authority within Professional Standards
Department. Depending on the extent of any failings, this could range from
being proportionately dealt with as a performance issue or for cases that
involve a breach of the standards of professional behaviour, progression
could be via misconduct or gross misconduct. Please see the following link
for advice on reporting an incident:
[1][5]https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...

Fails to specify any of the offences which may have been committed, and
the content of your response appears to stating that irrespective of
whether the matter is a complaint or a report of a criminal offence
committed by a police officer the only avenue for reporting is via your
online web portal which only allows you to report Incidents and not
allegations of crime.

Again I requested a list of any offences which may have been committed
with clear indications of which policy or statute defined the offence and
how any such offence was to be reported, your response has not provided
the information requested.

Question 4 asked

4.     If it is found that an officer has deliberately failed to correctly
gather relevant evidence and acted in a manner to ignore the crime to the
extent that it would constitute an attempt to pervert the course of
justice, please supply any information on how to report this matter and
whether it would be dealt with as an allegation of a crime committed by
the officer, or as appears standard as a simple complaint against police.

However your answer ignores the premise of the question

4.     Each individual case/complaint would have to be considered on its’
merits by the Appropriate Authority within Professional Standards
Department. Please see the following link for advice on reporting an
incident: [2]https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...

And indeed does not respond to the question asked at all.

You state that the appropriate authority within Professional Standards
would consider the matter when in fact the matter would never reach
Professional Standards if the force assessor decided that the complaint /
report should not be recorded.

Your response has not outlined the actual process nor the policies or
procedures which apply to reports nor any authority or documentation
defining the force assessors authority or indeed remit.

It has taken over 20 days for you to avoid answering all but one portion
of the request and I would request the dates and times that the provision
of the information arrived within your department prior to your response
today.

If as I imagine the information reached your department well in advance of
the 20 day time period and the response was simply delayed I will report
the incident to the ICO.

I would also point out that I submitted a SAR on the 20 August and will
expect the full disclosure of all communication from Mr Cleugh to the many
and various departments he contacted to request the answers to this
request to be released, on or before the 19 September 2019.

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

In response :

Our response to your initial request was due with yourself on 3 September
2019. Our response, to your initial request, was forwarded to yourself on
4 September 2019 – 1 working day late. Unfortunately staff deal with FOI
research in addition to dealing with their normal day to day duties, and
in conjunction with an increase in FOI submissions this has, on occasion,
has an impact on our being able to provide a response by the expected
date. Therefore, we can only apologise for the delay you experienced in
receiving your response.

I shall now cover the points in turn.

It should be noted that the Freedom of Information Act gives the public
the right to access recorded information held by and about a public
authority. It should not be seen as an opportunity to “question” the
police or to task the police FOI team with doing general research into a
subject that is likely to be available in the public domain. All
legislation is available via a simple internet search. Accordingly the
initial response whilst given in the spirit of the Act did not provide you
with the appropriate reply and the exemption outlined in Section 21 of the
Act should have been applied. This exemption applies where information is
available to the applicant elsewhere. To further assist, a list of the
most relevant pieces of legislation is attached which may be of use to
you. However it is  additionally noted that Northumbria Police has a
specific policy named Crime Investigation policy and this could have been
provided to you.  This is now attached.

Your question 3 asks for information that is not recorded, Northumbria
Police do not hold recorded information on every type of scenario that may
arise. The response was provided in the spirit of the Act though it would
have been more appropriate to advise that the requested information is not
held.

Similarly your question 4 asks for information on a scenario and
accordingly the appropriate response is that the information is not
recorded. Again the response was given in the spirit of the Act and was
provided to aid and assist in accordance with Section 16 of the Act which
states that a public authority has a duty to provide assistance to persons
who have made requests for information.

In conclusion, it is the decision of this review that whilst the original
response was supplied in the spirit of the Act and was provided in an
effort to aid and assist, it did not fully comply with the requirements of
the Act and on these points your complaint is upheld.  I hope that the
further information provided in this review resolves this matter for you.

Regarding the dates of the arrival of data, this is not relevant to the
content of the response supplied to you.

A response regarding subject access has been supplied to you separately.

If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of this review then it remains
open to you to refer this matter to the Information Commissioner at the
following address:

The Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely

Hayley young

Information Management Unit Manager

'Northumbria Police will be outstanding in the service we provide'

'We will do this through protecting the Vulnerable, delivering quality
Investigations and applying Problem solving to everything we do to protect
the communities we serve.'

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE The information
contained in this message and any attachment(s) is confidential and
intended only for the attention of the named organisation or individual to
whom it is addressed. The message may contain information that is covered
by legal, professional or other privilege. No mistake in transmission is
intended to waive or compromise any such privilege. This message has been
sent over public networks and the sender cannot be held responsible for
its integrity. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any
disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken in reliance of the
information contained herein is strictly prohibited, and is contrary to
the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988 and of the
Data Protection Act, 2018. Any views expressed are those of the sender
and, unless specifically stated, do not necessarily represent the view of
Northumbria Police. We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage
sustained as a result of software viruses. It is your responsibility to
carry out such virus checking as is necessary. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender by e-mail at once and delete
the message immediately. For more information about Northumbria Police
please visit our website - http://www.northumbria.police.uk

References

Visible links
1. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/199...
2. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...
3. https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...
4. https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s...
5. https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/our-s
6. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...