Modern Slavery incidents

The request was successful.

Dear Surrey Police,

As part of ongoing data sharing protocols, incidents stored either on a log or the Force Crime System (FCS) relating to slavery and human trafficking are shared with the Home Office for reporting purposes.

Please provide the number of incident reports logged by your constabulary under the following opening codes between the periods of 1 June 2019 and September 31 2019.

N200/01 - NRM referral pending reasonable grounds decision
N200/02 – NRM referral negative reasonable grounds decision
N200/03 – NRM referral - Duty to notify only
N200/04 – NRM referral – Positive reasonable Grounds/Police Referral – Outside England and Wales
N200/05 – NRM referral – Negative reasonable Grounds – Outside England/Wales
N200/06 –NRM referral – transferred to another force in England and Wales

Please note that logged incidents should not be omitted on the basis of their eventual recording status. This request is for incident reports that fit the above criteria, which may or may not eventually be recorded.

Kind regards,
M Esslemont

!Freedom of Information (Surrey), Surrey Police

Dear M Esslemont,

Freedom of Information: 003814/19 – Incidents NRM referral

I write in connection with your FOI request which was recently received.

We will respond within 20 working days to this request.

Yours Sincerely,

Information Access Team
Surrey Police
Telephone 01483 630007

!Freedom of Information (Surrey), Surrey Police

1 Attachment

 

 

Dear M Esslemont,

 

I write in connection with your request for information received on 14
October 2019.

You had asked:

 

As part of ongoing data sharing protocols, incidents stored either on a
log or the Force Crime System (FCS) relating to slavery and human
trafficking are shared with the Home Office for reporting purposes.

 

Please provide the number of incident reports logged by your constabulary
under the following opening codes between the periods of 1 June 2019 and
September 31 2019.

 

N200/01 - NRM referral pending reasonable grounds decision

N200/02 – NRM referral negative reasonable grounds decision

N200/03 – NRM referral - Duty to notify only

N200/04 – NRM referral – Positive reasonable Grounds/Police Referral –
Outside England and Wales

N200/05 – NRM referral – Negative reasonable Grounds – Outside
England/Wales

N200/06 –NRM referral – transferred to another force in England and Wales

 

Please note that logged incidents should not be omitted on the basis of
their eventual recording status. This request is for incident reports that
fit the above criteria, which may or may not eventually be recorded.

 

Response:

Section 1 of the Freedom of information Act 2000 (FOIA) places two duties
on public authorities.  Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at
s1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified within a
request is held.  The second duty at s1(1)(b) is to disclose information
that has been confirmed as being held.  Where exemptions are relied upon
Section 17 of the FOIA requires that we provide the applicant with a
notice which: a) states that fact, b) specifies the exemption(s) in
question and c) state (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the
exemption applies.

The information that you have requested is held by Surrey Police, however,
we are not obliged to provide the requested information as the duty in
s1(1)(b) of FOIA does not apply by virtue of the following exemption: 

·        Section 23(1) – Information supplied by, or concerning certain
Security Bodies

 

Section 23(1) states that Information held by a public authority is exempt
information if it was directly or indirectly supplied to the public
authority by, or relates to, any of the bodies specified in subsection
(3).

 

Section 23 is an absolute class-based exemption which means there is no
requirement to conduct a public interest test to justify its use.

 

In accordance with Section 17 of FOIA this letter represents a Refusal
Notice for your request.

 

 

Surrey Police provides you the right to request a re-examination of your
case under its review procedure. How to do this is set out in the attached
Appeals Notice.  Having followed the full procedure, if you are still
dissatisfied, then you have the right to direct your comments to the
Information Commissioner who will give your case consideration.

 

Thank you for your interest in Surrey Police. Should you have any further
enquiries concerning this matter, please write or contact us on 01483 -
630007 quoting the reference number above.

 

Yours sincerely
                                                                                                    

Neil Coventry

Information Access Team Decision Maker

Information Access Team

Surrey Police

Tel - 101

•         Hunt Number 30007

•         Fax 01483 634911

•         Address – Surrey Police, PO Box 101, Guildford, GU1 9PE

 

The Surrey Police Privacy Notice including your personal data rights is
available on the Surrey Police website or on this link: 
[1]https://www.surrey.police.uk/about-us/yo...

 

The content of this email is NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED

 

 

References

Visible links
1. https://www.surrey.police.uk/about-us/yo...

Dear Freedom of Information (Surrey),

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

I wish to request an internal review of case ref 003814/19.

My internal review request is being made on the basis that a FOIA 2000 section 23 and section 23(1) exemption has been incorrectly applied. Therefore, I am raising this matter internally with the view of escalating with the Information Commissioner's Office should I not receive the data requested.

- Security exemption -
Whilst the Act does provide exemptions on data provision which "directly" or "indirectly" reference a named security body within the Act, including the National Crime Agency (NCA), the original request (case ref 003814/19) petitions for information which is no longer provided as part of data-sharing protocols with the NCA as a Competent Authority (CA). As you know, as of 2019 the Home Office subsumed all the functions of other CAs (including the NCA) as one new 'Single Competent Authority'. The original Freedom of Information request falls significantly outside of the cessation of the NCA's involvement in NRM decision-making which is now solely managed by the Home Office. The Act does not list the Home Office as a named "security body" which, therefore, invalidates your rejection on the grounds of Section 23(1).

- Precedent -
Forms of this data are already in the public domain. National Referral Mechanism referrals and MS1 forms, or 'duties to notify', are outlined in HM Government's annual Modern Slavery Report released on 18th October in three consecutive years. Furthermore, one constabulary (City London) has already provided the report logs requested. The disclosure of identical information by a similar policing body, along with Government and Home Office's willingness to provide similar data on referrals, further discredits your claim that the requested data has any security implications under Section 23 in its entirety, let alone 23(1) specifically.

- Public interest test -
In light of the irrelevant application of Section 23(1) in the rejection of case ref 003703/19, a public interest test therefore applies to this request. The data requested does not pertain to any sensitive information with security implications or information relating to the crime itself. The data references opening codes listed in the Home Office Counting Rules which pertain only to referrals to support for victims. To deny the clear public interest in victims' recourse to both justice and crime-specific aftercare as a result of crime reporting is to ignore the significant attention media outlets, the public, and policy makers pay to data integrity matters. The simple information requested by myself in the first instance is clearly capable of passing a public interest test.

For these reasons outlined, I wish for this case to be reconsidered as part of an internal review, and will revoke my corresponding complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office upon a satisfactory response.

Yours sincerely,
M Esslemont

!Freedom of Information (Surrey), Surrey Police

Dear M Esslemont,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST REFERENCE: 004095/19

I acknowledge receipt of your email dated received 01/11/2019 requesting
that Surrey Police review our response to your request for information.

Our understanding is that the issues you have raised are:

My internal review request is being made on the basis that a FOIA 2000
section 23 and section 23(1) exemption has been incorrectly applied.
Therefore, I am raising this matter internally with the view of escalating
with the Information Commissioner's Office should I not receive the data
requested.

- Security exemption - Whilst the Act does provide exemptions on data
provision which "directly" or "indirectly" reference a named security body
within the Act, including the National Crime Agency (NCA), the original
request (case ref 003814/19) petitions for information which is no longer
provided as part of data-sharing protocols with the NCA as a Competent
Authority (CA). As you know, as of 2019 the Home Office subsumed all the
functions of other CAs (including the NCA) as one new 'Single Competent
Authority'. The original Freedom of Information request falls
significantly outside of the cessation of the NCA's involvement in NRM
decision-making which is now solely managed by the Home Office. The Act
does not list the Home Office as a named "security body" which, therefore,
invalidates your rejection on the grounds of Section 23(1).

- Precedent - Forms of this data are already in the public domain.
National Referral Mechanism referrals and MS1 forms, or 'duties to
notify', are outlined in HM Government's annual Modern Slavery Report
released on 18th October in three consecutive years. Furthermore, one
constabulary (City London) has already provided the report logs requested.
The disclosure of identical information by a similar policing body, along
with Government and Home Office's willingness to provide similar data on
referrals, further discredits your claim that the requested data has any
security implications under Section 23 in its entirety, let alone 23(1)
specifically.

- Public interest test - In light of the irrelevant application of Section
23(1) in the rejection of case ref 003703/19, a public interest test
therefore applies to this request. The data requested does not pertain to
any sensitive information with security implications or information
relating to the crime itself. The data references opening codes listed in
the Home Office Counting Rules which pertain only to referrals to support
for victims. To deny the clear public interest in victims' recourse to
both justice and crime-specific aftercare as a result of crime reporting
is to ignore the significant attention media outlets, the public, and
policy makers pay to data integrity matters. The simple information
requested by myself in the first instance is clearly capable of passing a
public interest test.

For these reasons outlined, I wish for this case to be reconsidered as
part of an internal review, and will revoke my corresponding complaint to
the Information Commissioner's Office upon a satisfactory response.

The review will be conducted by a trained FOI Officer who was not involved
in the original response in accordance with the Surrey Police review
procedure. Every effort will be made to have a response to you as soon as
possible and in any case within 20 days; however, if it becomes clear that
the review will not be completed within this time you will be contacted.

Yours Sincerely,

Information Access Team
Surrey Police
Telephone 01483 630007

!Freedom of Information (Surrey), Surrey Police

1 Attachment

Dear M Esslemont,

FOI Internal Review REFERENCE: 004095/19

On 14^th October 2019 you made a Freedom of Information request to Surrey
Police. You were provided with our response on 29^th October 2019. On 1^st
November 2019 you asked us to review that response. I am now writing to
you to confirm the result of that review.

Having had the opportunity to review our initial response, I can confirm
that the Section 23 exemption was incorrectly applied.  I am therefore
supplying the information that should have been disclosed,  in the
attached spreadsheet.  I apologise for the delay and I do hope that this
has not caused you too much inconvenience.

If you are not satisfied with the way we have dealt with your request and
this review, you can go to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO),
who may investigate the matter on your behalf. It is the ICO who will
decide if they will investigate or not. The ICO is responsible for
ensuring that all public authorities comply with the Act. The address is:
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF; Telephone 0303 123 1113; www.ico.gov.uk

Yours Sincerely,

Tony Smith
Information Access Team Supervisor
Surrey Police
Telephone 01483 630007