Provision of SMP's To Conduct Injury Awards

The request was partially successful.

Christine Allen

Dear Northumbria Police,

1.Please disclose all documentation, correspondence, emails, memos and other recorded information relating to the tender won by OHS Partners to perform the provision of OHS Partners To Conduct Injury Awards provision

2. Please disclose any and all documentation that shows compliance with Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

3. Please disclose the advertisement locations placed for the tender - i.e. the journals, websites and professional magazines that solicited for the above tender process

Yours faithfully,

Christine Allen

Northumbria Police

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  13/06/17 which is in accordance with the
legislation.

Yours sincerely

Shirley Scott
Information Management Unit

Northumbria Police

1 Attachment

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

Thank you for your e mail dated 15th May 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:

1.Please disclose all documentation, correspondence, emails, memos and
other recorded information relating to the tender won by OHS Partners to
perform the provision of OHS Partners To Conduct Injury Awards provision

2. Please disclose any and all documentation that shows compliance with
Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

3. Please disclose the advertisement locations placed for the tender -
i.e. the journals, websites and professional magazines that solicited for
the above tender process

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 the Finance
Department 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. By its very nature, information relating to this subject area will
contain commercially sensitive data. This information will attract
relevant exemption to withhold. This has been set out below.

Section 43 (2) Commercial Interests

Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would,or
would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person
(including the public authority holding it.)

I have carried out a public interest test as follows:

Factors favouring disclosure
The release of the information would demonstrate the openness of the
organisation to explain and account for monies spent on services and
contribute to the accuracy and quality of public debate of such matters,
especially in the current climate of cutbacks.
Disclosure of the information would also show the openness of the processes
by which such services are procured.

Factors favouring non disclosure
Release of the information would jeopardise the interests of third parties
in relation to sensitive commercial information held in relation to
contractual, financial or business issues and would harm the commercial
interests of service providers. Such disclosure may dissuade
those service providers from giving favourable rates to the police service.
As this is public money this would impact on the force getting the
opportunity to be provided with the best deals and value for allocated
budgets.

Balance test

A disclosure which greatly affects the ability of a product/service
supplier to operate in a free market would have a knock on effect on the
effectiveness of the force to do business in the future. Disclosures under
Freedom of Information which harm commercial partners will make it more
difficult to attract suitable suppliers in the future, as they avoid that
risk to their organisations. This will mean that the numbers of options to
select from could be reduced which in turn could mean either inferior
products having to be selected or more expensive options having to be
chosen. This would no be of benefit either to the force of to the public
purse. The accountability of public funds and the background to decisions
being made are compelling arguments, however this is offset by the fact
that the authority is already subject to financial audit and is accountable
for the money it spends.

You should therefore consider this to be a refusal notice under section 17
of the Act for those parts of your request outlined above.

See the below document attached below, which has been assessed as
appropriate for release into the public domain.

(See attached file: FOI 565-17.pdf)

Additionally the recommendation to award this to OHS Partners can be found
on the OPCC website. In order to assist I have provided the relevant link
below.

https://www.northumbria-pcc.gov.uk/v2/wp...

2. The procurement and selection process was carried in a fair and
transparent way in full compliance with the provisions of the Public
Regulations 2015 and associated legislation. The procurement was
advertised openly. Four bids were received. The bids were assessed in
accordance with the published assessed criteria and two organisations were
accepted.

3. The procurement was advertised on the Government’s Contracts Finder
Portal. https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder.
The contract award notice was published on both Contracts Finder and
the Official Journal of European Union

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.

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

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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