Dear Lancashire Police and Crime Commissioner,

I would like you to provide me with the number of complaints that have been brought against the Chief Constable of staff within this office.

I am seeking this for the past 2 years 2016 & 2017

Please can you break this down as follows:

Month of complaint
Who the Complaint was against (Chief Constable or staff)
Nature of the complaint and or category and allegation.
Whether the complaint was categorised as a Local Resolution or Local Investigation
Whether the complaint was upheld by the PCC or not upheld
If not upheld, was it appealed and if so what number were upheld by the appeal body.

If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under your Section 16 obligations, as to how I can refine my request to be included in the scope of the Act. In any case, if you can identify ways that my request could be refined please provide further advice and assistance to indicate this.

I look forward to your response within 20 working days, as stipulated by the Act.

Yours faithfully,

Paul Ponting

Dear Ian Dickinson,

Thanks for the reply, to clarify my request

I would like you to provide me with the number of complaints that have been brought against the
Chief Constable OR staff within this office. ( I note I had typed 'of' instead of 'or')

I am looking for ALL complaints made against the chief constable by anyone.
I am looking for ALL complaints made against the chief constable's staff by anyone.

Please, can this be clearly identified who made the complaint, i.e. member of the public, public official, police officer etc.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Ponting

Dear Lancashire Police and Crime Commissioner,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Lancashire Police and Crime Commissioner's handling of my FOI request 'OPCC Complaints'.

You have refused to provide information to my request
" … Nature of the complaint and or category and allegation"

Your reason for this refusal is
"...In accordance with Section 17(1) of the Act, this letter serves as a refusal notice in relation to that information which has been withheld on the grounds that it relates to a living individual who might be identified."

I see no reasonable way (or how it would even be possible) that by identifying the nature of a complaint would identify the person making that complaint?

If the complaint was for e.g. "Perverting the course of justice" or "Misconduct in a public office" I question your rationale on how you could reasonably believe this could identify the complainant? (I am not asking for any identifiable information)

A person may be able to identify themselves as the complainant when seeing the information, in that they know they made a complaint about the Chief Constable in a certain month for a certain reason.

There is no reasonable way this could identify the complainant to the public, any more than could by providing the numerical stats for complaints that you have already disclosed?

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

Yours faithfully,

Paul Ponting

Dear Ian Dickinson,

I would like to bring to your attention a possible oversight to the data you have released under the FOI. I see an annotation left by a Carl Robinson, I have copied it below for your convenience.

carl robinson left an annotation (23 December 2017)
More false releases
I had 7 in July on my own they recorded 5
2 upheld by the IPCC which the PCC is refusing to record on the ground the police have told him not to record any complaints against the Chief Constable with out the forces says so
[extraneous material removed]

Please can you clarify the FOI data you released as there seems to be an allegation that it is [potentially defamatory material removed] [removed content suggested the response was inaccurate] ?

Yours sincerely,

Paul Ponting