Speed of starting "independent" "investigations"
Dear Sir or Madam,
According to http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/news/pr080409_ian... following the death of Mr Tomlinson on 1/4/09 it was not until 6/4/09 that the IPCC decided to "manage" an "investigation" by the City of London Police into a death which occurred in the City of London, during events at which City of London officers were present. It was only on 8/4/09, seven days after the death, that the IPCC decided to operate an "independent" "investigation", though one that will still involve City of London "specialist resources".
We saw with the Stockwell murder that a press release by the IPCC that it is starting an "independent" "investigation" does not mean that one has actually started. It was a few days after the press release that IPCC staff bothered to put in an appearance at the crime scene at Stockwell station.
My FOI enquiry seeks two pieces of information.
1) On what date and at what time will/did the "independent" "investigation" into Mr Tomlinson's death start? The date and time of the press release is not an answer to this question.
2) I would like a breakdown of the time taken to start to "manage" "investigations" and the time taken to start an "independent" "investigation", for the 282 "independent" and 677 "managed" "investigations" mentioned in the press release.
I envisage your response being in the form of a table. The top line would be days since the event, starting at 0 and going up to the largest number of days.
The next line would be the total number of "managed" "investigations" which were started after that number of days.
The next line would be the same for "independent" "investigations"
Where an "investigation" started off as "managed" and then became "independent" this should be indicated on a third line with two figures. If there are cases which have gone from "independent" to "managed" they should be indicated on a fourth line.
Please note that "replies" which involve attachments in proprietary file formats are not acceptable. A reply which is not in plain text format will be deemed to be a refusal to answer. It may well be that it is difficult to render the table in plain text. In that case please contact me before replying to agree an acceptable format for the *table*. The rest of the reply does not need to be in anything other than plain text.
Yours faithfully,
David Hansen
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Independent Police Complaints Commission's handling of my FOI enquiry 'Speed of starting "independent" "investigations"'. This has not been responded to with sufficient speed.
A full history of my FOI enquiry and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sp...
Yours sincerely,
David Hansen
Dear Mr Hansen,
Thank you for your e-mail dated 09 April 2009, in which you ask for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I do apologise for the delay in responding to your request.
My responses to each of your requests are as follows:
1) On what date and at what time will/did the "independent investigation" into Mr Tomlinson's death start? The date and time of the press release is not an answer to this question.
I am pleased to confirm that this information is held by the IPCC.
The decision to change the Mode of Investigation into Mr Tomlinson's death from managed investigation to independent investigation was made on 08 April 2009 at 10.30am.
2. I would like a breakdown of the time taken to start to "managed investigations" and the time taken to start an "independent investigations", for the 282 "independent" and 677 "managed investigations" mentioned in the press release.
I can confirm that this information is held by the IPCC.
We have been unable to extract the information from our IPCC database; the data retrieved was not accurate.
We would be able to obtain accurate information by looking at 282 case files for independent investigations and 677 case files for managed investigations.
I estimate that it would take 5 minutes to go through each case file to locate and retrieve the information on the time taken to start managed and independent investigations.
282 independent investigations x 5 minutes per case file = 1,410 minutes divided by 60 minutes = 23.5 hours
677 managed investigations x 5 minutes per case file = 3,385 minutes divided by 60 minutes = 56 hours
Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act states:
12 Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
(1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.
The appropriate limit is set for the IPCC at £450, which represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the public body holds the information and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. I can confirm that I have already taken 3 hours determining whether the information requested is held by the IPCC and an estimated further 79.5 hours to obtain the requested information.
Therefore, I conclude that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate limit and, accordingly, the IPCC is under no obligation to provide the information you have requested as it is exempt under section 12 of the Act.
I have carefully considered your request under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. If you are not satisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review by our FOI appeals officer, who has had no involvement in dealing with your request.
If you wish to appeal against this decision, please contact:
Freedom of Information Act Appeals
IPCC
90 High Holborn
London
WC1V 6BH
E mails should be clearly marked 'Appeal against FOI decision' and sent to: [IPCC request email].
Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner; however, I should point out that under section 50(2)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act, you are obliged to exhaust the IPCC's own internal complaint mechanism before complaining to the Information Commissioner.
I am sorry for the delay in responding to your request for information. Please be assured that your appeal against the timeliness in dealing with this request has been forwarded to the FOI Appeals Officer.
Yours sincerely,
Vangie
Ms Vangie Parker
Freedom of Information Officer
independent police complaints commission
90 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6BH
Tel: 0207 166 3000
Fax: 0207 404 0430
E mail for IPCC FOI Unit: [IPCC request email]
caught by this request.
Dear FOI Requests,
"The decision to change the Mode of Investigation into Mr Tomlinson's death from managed investigation to independent investigation was made on 08 April 2009 at 10.30am."
Thank you for this information.
"Therefore, I conclude that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate limit and, accordingly, the IPCC is under no obligation to provide the information you have requested as it is exempt under section 12 of the Act."
In view of the inaccuracy of the output of the computer system output I hope that it is not used to produce figures for any sort of management function, or to answer other questions about the efficiency of the IPCC.
In this situation helpful organisations have offered to work on a sample of the paper records, to produce information which is as accurate as possible within the cost limits. The sample can be chosen in a number of ways but needs to be as representative as possible. The sample consists of the maximum number of paper records which can be processed within the cost limit.
If you were to offer this then I would take the offer up and make suggestions on the appropriate sample.
Yours sincerely,
David Hansen
Dear Sir or Madam,
I forgot to add. The IPCC is under a duty to provide advice and assistance under section 16 of FoA. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2000/ukp... Offering to undertake a sample of records is an example of the sort of assistance this duty entails.
Yours sincerely,
David Hansen
Dear Sir or Madam,
It is now a considerable time since I outlined a way forward. However the IPCC has chosen not to respond in any way. You have had long enough. I seek an internal review of your failure to assist my enquiries by providing the information I suggested.
Yours faithfully,
David Hansen
Dear Mr Hansen,
Than you for your e-mails. I would like to apologise for the delay in
responding to your internal review and hope that this has not caused you
any inconvenience. I can confirm that I am processing your review and
hope to be in a position to formally respond by no later than the 4th
September 2009.
Once again I would like to apologise for the delay in responding.
I will come back to you once I have finalised it.
Yours sincerely
Miss Chowhan
Miss Diljinder Kaur Chowhan
Freedom of Information Team Leader
Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)
90 High Holborn
London
WC1V 6BH
Direct Dial 0207 166 3274
Personal Fax 0207 166 3574
Dear Diljinder Chowhan,
My initial enquiry was made on the 9th of April.
The proposed reply will be nearly 5 months later, on the 4th of September.
Yours sincerely,
David Hansen
Dear Mr Hansen,
Please find attached my response to your internal review.
Please let me know if you are unable to open the attached document and I
will send you a copy in the post.
Yours sincerely
Miss Diljinder Kaur Chowhan
Freedom of Information Team Leader
Independent Police Complaints Commission
Dear Diljinder Chowhan,
I refer you to the last paragraph of my original enquiry.
The question is not whether I can open a particular file or not. The question is whether the reply is in a format which is easy for others to read and be indexed by search engines.
At the moment all that can indexed is "Please find attached my response to your internal review." This is not helpful to anyone, but being unhelpful to others is a characteristic of the "Independent" Police Complaints Commission.
The "I"PCC could be helpful by placing the reply into plain text form, so that anyone can read it and it can be indexed. This would be a matter of a minute or two of staff time, instead the "I"PCC's failure to do this means that I have had to spend time typing this message.
Is it really so difficult to do what someone making an enquiry asks for?
Yours sincerely,
David Hansen
Dear Mr Hansen,
Thank you for your e-mail. Please see my decision notice below.
Our ref: 1001662
Mr David Hansen
By E-mail Only to:
[FOI #10297 email]
4th September 2009
Dear Mr Hansen
Re: Your Internal Review
I write further to my e-mail dated 19th August 2009. You have requested
an internal review from your e-mail of the 29th May 2009, firstly in
regards to the length of time it has taken to respond to your original
request. I would like to apologise for the delay in responding to your
internal review and hope that this has not caused you any inconvenience.
The IPCC has experienced an increase in the volume of information
requests it receives and this has caused the delay in responding to you.
I note your original request was made on the 9th April 2009. Ms Parker
sent you a decision notice on the 8th June. This was effectively out of
time. The information that you had requested, in particular question 2
was a complex piece of work and it took some time to establish whether
that information requested would be an accurate reflection of the data
held by the IPCC or not. Your request should have been dealt with
within the designated time frame as stated in the 2000 Act. I uphold
your request in regard to this.
I also note your e-mails of the 8th and 17th June 2009, regarding
section 16 of the 2000 Act. Question 2 of Ms Parker's decision notice
set out that section 12 of the Act applied as the information was exempt
from disclosure as the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate
limit.
In considering Ms Parkers decision for question 2 and the obligations
under section 16 of the 2000 Act, I uphold this part of the request and
consider that Ms Parker should have considered section 16 and provided
you with advice and assistance so that an agreement could have been made
as to what information could be provided within the cost limit.
Upon reviewing your request it occurs to me the exercise you suggest
would be unlikely to produce any meaningful data for several reasons.
First, in accordance with paragraph 4 of schedule 3 of the Police Reform
Act 2002, the IPCC is reliant upon the "appropriate authority" (police)
to make a formal "reference" of the incidents without such a "reference"
the IPCC cannot determine the mode of investigation in accordance with
paragraph 5 and 15.
Second, the "event" may not come to light for a number of years, for
example, in a corruption case, so that there will be a long delay
between the "event" and the matter being referred to the IPCC. Third,
in regard to many incidents an IPCC investigator would attend an
"incident" scene within hours or sooner, of the incident occurring and
will take steps to ensure that evidence is secured and that enough
information is available to enable the IPCC to make an informed decision
about the mode of investigation and what resources should be committed.
This raises the question as to when precisely the IPCC investigation
could have been said to have started. Since the formal decision as to
the mode of investigation may not be formally recorded until after
sometime after significant resources have been committed to the incident
and the IPCC's assessment is complete.
I would suggest therefore that the most meaningful information we could
provide you with as to the length of time between when the incident is
notified to the IPCC and when an investigator first attends the scene.
As this type of information will only be available in respect of
discreet incidents for example, a death at a police station, it would
seem to me that we should focus only upon this type of investigation
when producing information to you.
I would propose therefore that we select 10 deaths in custody cases for
this exercise. Please confirm whether this would be satisfactory to
you.
If you are unhappy with this decision you can now contact the
Information Commissioners Office:
Information Commissioners Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline: 08456 30 60 60
Yours Sincerely
Miss Diljinder Kaur Chowhan
Freedom of Information Team Leader
Independent Police Complaints Commission
Dear Diljinder Chowhan,
Although I am not happy with a sample of just ten cases I will accept it.
Yours sincerely,
David Hansen
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