Misconduct Procedure

The request was partially successful.

Dear Ministry of Justice,

Please supply an updated version (2020) of your Misconduct Procedure Guidance for Staff and Managers.

Please confirm that this current version also applied to the period 2016-2019, if not please provide that version also.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

J E Garner

Dear Ministry of Justice,

Please acknowledge receipt of my FOI dated 10 November 2020.
Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

J E Garner

Disclosure Team, Ministry of Justice

Hello,

I can confirm that I have received your request and this is being worked on.

Thanks

Laura

show quoted sections

MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence, Ministry of Justice

6 Attachments

Good Afternoon,

 

Please find the response to your recent FOI request attached

 

Kind Regards,

 

[1]Ministry of Justice MoJ People Group Correspondence

102 Petty France

12th Floor Tower

London

SW1H 9AJ
[2]Protecting and advancing the principles of justice

 

Please consider the environment before printing this email

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear MoJ People Group Correspondence,
Thank you for providing the Discipline policy and guidance documents.

1. Under the heading "WHAT IS MISCONDUCT" page 6 of Amended policy September 2017, sub heading "Gross Misconduct" bullet point 9 entitled "Falsification of records" please advise if the falsification of a judicial record, for example High Court case law, sanctioned by a member of staff, would constitute a failure to adhere to the standards required in the Conduct policy and those of the Civil Service Code.

2. Are allegations of Gross Misconduct against an employee dealt with differently depending on who reports them, that is:
A) Reported by another member of staff (at any level)?
B) Reported b a member of the public?

3. Under the Heading "WHAT IS ZERO TOLERANCE" page 7, it states "Zero tolerance means the manager will: "Treat allegations seriously"
"Always investigate"
Are there any exceptions whereby an allegation of the forgery of documents, for example High Court case law, would not be investigated, and any reasoning behind such a decision?

4. Page 19 states "If you suspect a team member’s activities to be of a fraudulent nature you should
immediately refer to your business area’s Fraud Response Plan or MoJ’s Fraud policy on the intranet in order to identify the relevant contact who will then advise you how to proceed"
A) Would an allegation of the forgery of documents, for example High Court case law, be referred to HMCTS Fraud Department to investigate?
B) Would a report detailing the conduct of the investigation and all areas pursued, carried out by HMCTS Fraud be available to a member of the public who had complained?

5. Page 22: " The aim of the investigation is to make a justifiable recommendation about whether misconduct is likely to have occurred. So whoever conducts the investigation must make enough enquiries to ensure that they have all the available evidence and considered all relevant facts needed to make that recommendation."
What would be the average length of time to carry out such an investigation "to ensure that they have all the available evidence and considered all relevant facts"?

6. Page 23 Top Tip " If there is an allegation of internal fraud, the fraud teams must be involved. (Forgery is a sub section of Fraud) Are all staff fraud/forgery investigations notified to the CEO of HMCTS and or MoJ?

7. Page 24: Action – "The recommendation about whether the team member has breached the Conduct policy must be made on the balance of probability. That means that, on the balance of the available evidence, it is more probable than not that the team member has or has not breached the Conduct policy."
Top Tip
"The Investigation Report will inform decisions and could ultimately be presented to an Employment Tribunal. Consequently, it is vital that the report is comprehensive, accurate and based on the objective and fair assessment of the evidence available."
A) Under what circumstances can written evidence of the forgery of a judicial document (High Court case law) be dismissed to find an outcome of "no case to answer" by HMCTS Fraud Department
B) Under what circumstances can HMCTS Fraud Department refuse to investigate allegations of forgery as above by a member of the public?

8. Page 28 "WHAT DO I DO WITH ALL THE DOCUMENTATION I HAVE COLLECTED?"
How long are the investigation reports/findings kept by HMCTS Fraud Department

9. In the interests of Transparency, are there any circumstances whereby an investigation can be removed from the HMCTS Fraud Department and referred back to the Manager of Department to conduct an investigation, where the person who the allegations are against continues to work?

Yours sincerely,

J E Garner

Dear MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence,
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request – 201110012

I have not received a reply to my communication to you dated 23 November 2020.

Please respond promptly.

Yours sincerely,

J E Garner

MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence, Ministry of Justice

Good Morning,

Thank you for your e-mail, I am writing to advise you that your enquiry does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) regime and has been rejected by the Disclosure Team. In order to respond to your query, could you please disclose your personal email as we are unable to respond to WDTK email addresses with a BAU response.

It may be helpful if I explain that the FOIA gives individuals and organisations the right of access to all types of recorded information held, at the time the request is received, by public authorities such as the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Section 84 of the FOIA states that in order for a request for information to be handled as a FOI request, it must be for recorded information.

For example, a FOI request would be for a copy of a policy, rather than an explanation as to why we have that policy in place. On occasion, the MoJ receives requests that do not ask for recorded information, but ask more general questions about, for example, a policy, opinion or a decision.

You may wish to re-submit your enquiry to the Ministry of Justice, which will be treated as Official Correspondence. Our contact details are as follows:

102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9AJ

Contact Form: https://contact-moj.dsd.io/

If you do have any questions relating specifically to the FOIA or Data Protection Act (DPA), please contact the Disclosure Team at the following e-mail address: [MoJ request email]

Kind regards,
MoJ People Group Correspondence
102 Petty France
12th Floor Tower
London
SW1H 9AJ

Please consider the environment before printing this email

show quoted sections

Dear MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence,
REFERENCE 201110012
Thank you for your response.
I note you ask for my personal email, it may be transparent to give your name at the end of the letter instead of "MoJ People Group Correspondence" for a start.

I disagree that my FOI Request should be dealt with as correspondence for the following reasons:
1. My original request was for copies of recorded information, which was supplied.
2. I am now requesting further information that was considered in the making of the decisions that relate to the final documents or records, including an opinion if already recorded. For example "What is zero tolerance" I have asked are then any exceptions, and what would be the reasoning/decisions behind it? A policy would have to have in place different scenarios/exceptions and this would be taken into account and commented on when drafting the policy.
3. I believe my request is also in the public interest, in order that a person could consider any implications of the reporting of fraud/forgery and therefore all wider considerations should be taken into account.
4. There must be further information generated in the compiling of the Misconduct Procedure Guidance, which will relate to my further request for information.
5. It is of no surprise to me that the "Disclosure Team" have rejected my request as previous correspondence with them demonstrates a total lack of transparency.

Yours sincerely,

J E Garner

Dear MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence,

Please respond to my response to you dated 17 December 2020.
Thank you

Yours sincerely,

J E Garner

MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence, Ministry of Justice

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for your email response below. The information that you have requested is not recorded so therefore does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as previously stated. In order to respond to your query, you would need to disclose your personal email as we are unable to respond to WDTK email addresses with a business as usual response.

It may be helpful if I explain that the FOIA gives individuals and organisations the right of access to all types of recorded information held, at the time the request is received, by public authorities such as the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Section 84 of the FOIA states that in order for a request for information to be handled as a FOI request, it must be for recorded information.

You may wish to re-submit your enquiry to the Ministry of Justice, which will be treated as Official Correspondence. Contact Form: https://contact-moj.dsd.io/

If you do have any questions relating specifically to the FOIA or Data Protection Act (DPA), please contact the Disclosure Team at the following e-mail address: [MoJ request email]

Kind regards,

MoJ People Group Correspondence
102 Petty France
12th Floor Tower
London
SW1H 9AJ

Please consider the environment before printing this email

show quoted sections

Dear MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence,
REFERENCE 201110012
Thank you for your response dated 13 January 2021.

Rather than continuing any correspondence with the Disclosure Team, who in my experience have lacked transparency, This FOI request may be more applicable to be responded to by the MoJ/HMCTS Fraud Department Head Chris Stores, in which case I would be grateful if you could please forward my FOI request to Mr Stores please.

Yours sincerely,

J E Garner

MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence, Ministry of Justice

Good Afternoon,

 

The response that was previously provided to you was on behalf of the
whole of the MoJ. The teams you have mentioned below have been consulted
on this and agree with our response.

 

As previously stated, if you wish for your query to be responded to, by
any government department or team, you would need to disclose your
personal email address, as we are unable to respond to WDTK email
addresses with a business as usual response.

 

It may be helpful if I explain that the FOIA gives individuals and
organisations the right of access to all types of recorded information
held, at the time the request is received, by public authorities such as
the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Section 84 of the FOIA states that in order
for a request for information to be handled as a FOI request, it must be
for recorded information.

 

You may wish to re-submit your enquiry to the Ministry of Justice, which
will be treated as Official Correspondence, this can be done by emailing
the Disclosure Team ([email address])

 

If you do have any questions relating specifically to the FOIA or Data
Protection Act (DPA), please contact the Disclosure Team at the above
address.

 

Kind regards,

 

MoJ People Group Correspondence

102 Petty France

12th Floor Tower

London

SW1H 9AJ

 

show quoted sections

Dear MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence,

Reference 201110012

On the last page of the 2017 HRD Policy it states:
FURTHER INFORMATION
For further information and advice on this
Section policy please contact the HR Contact Centre

Perhaps they may be able to answer my FOI request?

Yours sincerely,

J E Garner

MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence, Ministry of Justice

Good Afternoon,

Please be aware that HRD Policy and the contact centre both sit within the MoJ, who have rejected this case being dealt with as an FOI.

As previously mentioned, the information that you have requested is not recorded so therefore does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In order to respond to your query, you would need to disclose your personal email as we are unable to respond to WDTK email addresses with a business as usual response.

If you wish to re-submit your enquiry to the Ministry of Justice, please do so by emailing the Disclosure Team ([email address]), you can also contact the Disclosure Team if you have any questions relating specifically to the FOIA or Data Protection Act (DPA).

Kind Regards,

MoJ People Group Correspondence
102 Petty France
12th Floor Tower
London
SW1H 9AJ

Please consider the environment before printing this email

show quoted sections

Dear MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence,
You have stated:
"As previously mentioned, the information that you have requested is not recorded so therefore does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In order to respond to your query, you would need to disclose your personal email as we are unable to respond to WDTK email addresses with a business as usual response."

There are plenty of other incidences on the What Do They Know website whereby the MoJ have answered questions which have fallen outside the strict FOIA remit, and mentioned so, whilst giving the answer as correspondence, why are you unable to do the same?

Yours sincerely,

J E Garner

MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence, Ministry of Justice

Good Afternoon,
 
Regardless of correspondence that you may have had sight of in the past,
we are only able to respond to your query as a Freedom of Information
(FOI) if it falls under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). As
previously mentioned, in order to respond to your query, you would need to
disclose your personal email address and we will respond to you with a
business as usual response. Otherwise we will not be able to help you with
this request.
 
If you wish to re-submit your enquiry to the Ministry of Justice, please
do so by emailing the Disclosure Team ([email address]), you
can also contact the Disclosure Team if you have any questions relating
specifically to the FOIA or Data Protection Act (DPA).
 
MoJ People Group Correspondence
102 Petty France
12th Floor Tower
London
SW1H 9AJ
 

show quoted sections

Dear MoJPeopleGroupCorrespondence,

The reasons for your refusal to answer my FOI are weak to say the least.

The collective egregious behaviour across the MOJ is of no surprise though.

Has your department received an exemption from the Civil Service Code of Conduct I have to ask?

" you can also contact the Disclosure Team if you have any questions relating
specifically to the FOIA or Data Protection Act (DPA)."
This department is instrumental in the corruption of a former SAR, why would I waste my time?

Yours sincerely,

J E Garner