The Commonwealth Games Operation 2022

The request was partially successful.

Dear West Midlands Police,I note that the Commonwealth Games are finally due to commence in Birmingham on 28th July 2022 and there has been a massive effort over the past 2 years to ensure the security of the Games,including staff training and the use of new technology, and that additional officers from outside of the area are being requested to provide assistance.There will apparently be a heavy reliance on the use of drones and police dogs and the possible trial of live streaming body cam footage which will make the event a great technology experiment.
FOI Q1.What is the official operation name for the Commonwealth Games(CG) operation?
FOIQ2.What is the anticipated quantum of police personnel dedicated to the policing of the Games, in terms of their numbers and ranks(including police civilians,PCSO and cadets) derived from the West Midlands Police database, with the same data for each of the named outside supporting forces.
FOIQ3.Please advise what is the amount of funding provided to cover the payroll of CG policing activities, from the Home Office or other named sources.
FOIQ4.Please advise of the number of drones available to deploy at the CG, their model types and individual purchase costs. Please advise which of these drones are fully owned by WM police and if any are being paid for by rental or installments, and which firms are responsible for drone supply and maintenance.
FOI Q5.How many police dogs, and their types and names,are planned to be used at the CG?
FOIQ6.Regarding the trial use of live streaming of body cam footage is this a Home Office approved experiment, how much funding has been provided for it, does WM Police own the equipment and hold a license agreement, and who has provided the technology?
End of FOI requests.
Sadly,the WMP have a long history of not being honest or transparent on matters of surveillance, with the memory of Operation Champion being the most striking example, and many member countries of the Commonwealth still have a fearful recollection of dogs being used in the British Empire for slave control and Muslims in particular dislike them for religious reasons, so I am keen to know how many are being deployed.
Thanking you in anticipation.
Yours faithfully,

Dennis Fallon(BScHons)

Freedom of Information, West Midlands Police

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dennis fallon left an annotation ()

Spy cameras were installed under BIRMINGHAM PROJECT CHAMPION, it was not classed as an operation, and sadly the police and key council officials told lies at public meetings to discuss.The cameras were removed and never used, a shameful episode in Birmingham history.

dennis fallon left an annotation ()

quote from birminghamworld.uk "Ahead of the Commonwealth Games, Project Servator was launched. The project is made up of intelligence-led deployments and is designed to disrupt a range of crime while reassuring members of the public. In Birmingham, there will be uniformed and plain clothes officers patrolling the venues. West Midlands Police have revealed that they will have up to 3,000 officers working across the Games footprint during the event. Around 1,000 local officers will be joined by over 2,000 officers from forces across the country on ‘mutual aid’. This includes officers from Police Scotland, Ministry of Defence Police, Civil Nuclear Constabulary and Police Scotland. Those officers will be working alongside more than 4,000 private contract security staff, who have now been recruited and will support everyone at the Games. Additional Armed Forces personnel are on hand if required during the Games"Earlier this month, the West Midlands police announced 40 of their officers were out with the Birmingham 2022 Queen’s Baton Relay. They are running every step of the way along with the baton and inspirational baton bearers. .

David Notley, West Midlands Police

Dear Mr Fallon

FOI Request Reference: 950A/22

Thank you for your request for information, received 19 July 2022.

The FOI Act obliges us to respond to requests promptly and in any case no later than 20 working days after receiving your request. We must consider firstly whether we can comply with section 1(1)(a) of the Act, which is our duty to confirm whether or not the information requested is held and secondly we must comply with section 1(1)(b), which is the provision of such information.

However, when a qualified exemption applies either to the confirmation or denial, or the provision of the information and the public interest test is engaged, the Act allows the time for response to be longer than 20 working days, if the balance of such public interest is undetermined. In this case we have not yet reached a decision on where the balance of the public interest lies in respect of the provision of the requested information for question 4.

We estimate that it will take an additional 20 working days to make a decision on where this balance lies. Therefore, we plan to let you have a response by 14 September 2022. If it appears that it will take longer than this to reach a conclusion, you will be kept informed. The specific exemption which applies in relation this information is Section 31 - Law enforcement [include both qualified and absolute indicating which is which and include a brief explanation of why it/they apply unless it is not apparent or unless you are not required to do so by virtue of section 17 (4)]

I apologise for any inconvenience. We aim to provide you with a meaningful response as soon as possible.

RIGHT OF APPEAL

Your attention is drawn to your right to request a re-examination of your case under West Midlands Police review procedure, which can be found at:

http://foi.west-midlands.police.uk/revie...

Please note that such an appeal must be received within 40 working days of the date of this correspondence. Any such request received after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the FOI Unit.

If you need any further information please contact me.

Yours sincerely,

David Notley | Freedom of Information Officer
Corporate Communications | West Midlands Police
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show quoted sections

Dear David Notley,Thank you for your update, the information should be easily available, the only delay as you advise is the public interest test considerations.Whilst I await the conclusion of your deliberations I would appreciate an explanation as to how your decision making process is actally implemented.Who are the people involved in the deliberations in this case,does this require a group meeting(s) of some kind,what role does the Chief Constable have in the process and who authorises the final decision?Does it require Home Office imput?As you require over 3 weeks to make a decision it would be helpful to provide an insight into the process and the various individuals involved to improve public understanding.Thanking you in anticipation of an intermediate and insightful explanation.

Yours sincerely,

dennis fallon

David Notley, West Midlands Police



I am out of the office until Tuesday 30th August 2022. In my absence, if
you have an urgent query please contact the Freedom of Information
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Dear David Notley, I appreciate you only came back to work a week ago and have probably got a backlog but I do pay my taxes towards the police service and get a bit despondent seeing the actual quality of service provided.I have been posting requests for years and know your departmental FOI standards were designed by a collaboration between Carl Bird and Sir David Thompson,soon after his arrival from Greater Manchester Police, and I look forward to the new Chief Constable Craig Guildford giving your department a thorough review.I appreciate that Sir David may be busy clearing his desk and deleting all reference to his tenure at WM Police but you should not let that impede that service provided by your office.I accept the delay to my original request as you are obviously nervous about disclosing the heavy investment in drones and their high quality monitoring capabilities but you know the public have the right to know how their force operates, it should not be operating as a private firm focussed on commecial opportunities.Within the next 7 days I do expect a clear reply to my intermediate question as to how your system operates when reviewing the disclosure of information, if you put your mind to it it should take less than 30 minutes because there is no need to search for data or redact anything to produce the intermediate update.Sorry to be so pressing, my tolerance levels are now pretty close to zero, I read local media intensively and,sadly, serious crime seems to be rampant and WM police are held in very low regard despite their best efforts to be seen as universally friendly to all types as a priority, but I have been beaten up and robbed in the street by 2 politically indescribable teenagers so I know some of the realities of policing and some of the failings.Wow,it`s good to get that off my chest,look forward to your intermediate response in the time scale advised.

Yours sincerely,

Dennis Fallon BScHons

Freedom of Information, West Midlands Police

Dear Mr Fallon

Thank you for your request for information, received 27/08/22

As the questions did not form part of your initial request, they are being dealt with as a new request and we will endeavour to provide a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days, as defined by the Act, subject to the application of any statutory exemptions. Where consideration is being given to the application of any exemptions the 20 working day timescale may be extended under the terms of the Act to a period considered reasonable depending on the nature and circumstances of your request. In such cases you will be notified and, where possible, a revised time-scale will be indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with your request at the earliest opportunity.

I hope that this is of assistance
Yours Sincerely
Mrs R Williams

Rebecca Williams l FOI Manager
Lloyd House l West Midlands Police

show quoted sections

Dear Rebecca Williams, thank you for your response on behalf of a query I posted to David Notley`s inbox.I note that you are treating it as a new FOI request when in reality it as not.By definition, surely, a FOI request has the basic requirement for the searching and release of information that is held or the generation of excuses for not providing the information. My intermediate request for `information` is not for information `held` as such, and which would take a little effort to retrieve, but for clarification as to how the appeal process is implemented and the individuals concerned. No one outside of the tightly knit circle which `deals` with FOI have a clue as to how you operate and, for public information, you should be treating it promptly as AOB not FOI. Please don`t assume requests are adversarial, when I worked in a professional public facing role, not in an office, I was under immense work and time pressure (you cannot imagine) and my professional attitude was to treat everyone with respect (including foolish people) and not only treat all enquiries immediately and completely but also to answer questions which were not relevant to the situation or signpost them to a more appropriate source. I appreciate that it is time consuming obtaining and checking and redacting information to be issued in print but I don`t think these necessities apply to my intermediate request and I was anticipating a simple explanation to paint a picture.Pardon my ignorance, if in your judgement you consider the intermediate request to be a new FOI please continue but at the end I will anticipate a clear answer and not some excuse for failure to provide.
Yours sincerely,

Dennis Fallon BScHons

Freedom of Information, West Midlands Police

5 Attachments

Dear Mr Fallon

 

FOI Request Reference: 950A/22

 

Thank you for your request for information, received 19 July 2022.

 

REQUEST

 

Dear West Midlands Police, I note that the Commonwealth Games are finally
due to commence in Birmingham on 28th July 2022 and there has been a
massive effort over the past 2 years to ensure the security of the Games,
including staff training and the use of new technology, and that
additional officers from outside of the area are being requested to
provide assistance. There will apparently be a heavy reliance on the use
of drones and police dogs and the possible trial of live streaming body
cam footage which will make the event a great technology experiment.

 

Q1. What is the official operation name for the Commonwealth Games (CG)
operation?

 

Q2. What is the anticipated quantum of police personnel dedicated to the
policing of the Games, in terms of their numbers and ranks (including
police civilians, PCSO and cadets) derived from the West Midlands Police
database, with the same data for each of the named outside supporting
forces.

 

Q3. Please advise what is the amount of funding provided to cover the
payroll of CG policing activities, from the Home Office or other named
sources.

 

Q4. Please advise of the number of drones available to deploy at the CG,
their model types and individual purchase costs. Please advise which of
these drones are fully owned by WM police and if any are being paid for by
rental or instalments, and which firms are responsible for drone supply
and maintenance.

 

Q5. How many police dogs, and their types and names, are planned to be
used at the CG?

 

Q6. Regarding the trial use of live streaming of body cam footage is this
a Home Office approved experiment, how much funding has been provided for
it, does WM Police own the equipment and hold a license agreement, and who
has provided the technology?

 

 

RESPONSE

 

Q5 - Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide
this information within the appropriate (cost) limit under the Freedom of
Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).

 

However, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the
Freedom of Information Act*, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied
information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised
that the fees limit would be exceeded (see attached file
950A_22_attachment.pdf). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect
our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of the
request.

 

* If responding to one part of a request would exceed the cost limit,
public authorities do not have to provide a response to any other parts of
the request
[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...

 

Q2&3 – This information is exempt by virtue of Section 22(1) (Information
intended for future publication). This exemption and explanatory notes is
shown here:

 

[2]https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-co...

 

Under section 22 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in
response to a request if it is already scheduled to be released into the
public domain. The Operation Unity Freedom of Information Publication
Strategy, which was implemented in December 2021, details how West
Midlands Police intend to publish on dates which are at its discretion
regarding information on selected costs, resources, and statistics in
relation to the Commonwealth Games 2022.

 

The identified benefits of engaging this exemption are that dealing with
requests for certain data whilst Operation Unity is ongoing can be complex
and resource intensive. Also, random piecemeal disclosures may in fact
damage the planning and/ or delivery process and affect the strategic aims
of the operation. This can manifest itself in many ways, and there will
also be an appetite from the media to gain exclusive knowledge and data,
via FOI.

 

The application of this exemption, under Section 22 of the FOI Act also
allows a sterile period, prior to publication by WMP in accordance with
the intended publication listed at
[3]https://birmingham2022.west-midlands.pol... Where all the
stakeholders are able to consult, this will ensure that the final
publication document meets the full needs of the public and the
authorities involved. This coordinated approach to publication mitigates
any harm that may be caused by random incomplete information entering the
public domain.

 

REASON FOR DECISION

 

Information regarding the breeds and names of the dogs would not have been
captured at the time. Therefore we would need to go back to try and
establish this information and such an exercise would be hugely time
consuming and exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).

 

This means that the cost of compliance with the whole of your request is
above the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e. the
cost of locating and retrieving the information would exceed the
appropriate costs limit under section 12(1) of the FOI Act 2000. For West
Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450, as prescribed by
the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.

 

Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here:

 

[4]https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-co...

 

RIGHT OF APPEAL

 

Your attention is drawn to your right to request a re-examination of your
case under West Midlands Police review procedure, which can be found at:

 

[5]http://foi.west-midlands.police.uk/revie...

 

Please note that such an appeal must be received within 40 working days of
the date of this correspondence. Any such request received after this time
will only be considered at the discretion of the FOI Unit.

 

If you require any further information, then please do not hesitate to
contact me.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

David Notley | Freedom of Information Officer
Corporate Communications | West Midlands Police

Preventing crime, protecting the public and helping those in need.

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Freedom of Information, West Midlands Police

Dear Mr Fallon

 

FOI Request Reference: 1136A/22

Thank you for your request for information, received 27/08/22

 

REQUEST

In relation the FOIA Public Interest Test please provide the following:

 1. How your decision making process is actually implemented.
 2. Who are the people involved in the deliberations in this case,
 3. Does this require a group meeting(s) of some kind,
 4. What role does the Chief Constable have in the process
 5. Who authorises the final decision?
 6. Does it require Home Office input?

 

I note that you contacted us again on 6^th September 2022 to make
reference that you believed that your enquiry should be dealt with outside
of the FOI Act.

 

RESPONSE

Please note that there is no specific recorded information held in
relation to your enquiry. However, in order to assist, the guidelines and
legislation around FOI Public Interest Tests can be found on the internet
at various sites eg:

 

[1]Freedom of Information Act 2000 (legislation.gov.uk)

 

[2]Freedom of information | College of Policing

 

[3]When can we refuse a request for information? | ICO

 

[4]Microsoft Word - NPCC Manual Of Guidance 2021 v8.0
(cityoflondon.police.uk)

 

RIGHT OF APPEAL

 

Your attention is drawn to your right to request a re-examination of your
case under West Midlands Police review procedure, which can be found at:

 

[5]http://foi.west-midlands.police.uk/revie...

 

Please note that such an appeal must be received within 40 working days of
the date of this correspondence. Any such request received after this time
will only be considered at the discretion of the FOI Unit.

 

To assist further, outside of the FOI Act, I can advise of the following
in relation to your enquires. However, please note as this information has
been provided outside of the Act there is no recourse for Internal Review
or escalation to the ICO as a complaint under the legislation.

 

 1. How your decision making process is actually implemented.

 

REPLY: The West Midlands Police FOI Unit follow the guidelines referenced
above

 

 2. Who are the people involved in the deliberations in this case,
 3. Does this require a group meeting(s) of some kind,
 4. What role does the Chief Constable have in the process
 5. Who authorises the final decision?
 6. Does it require Home Office input?

 

REPLY: The FOI Officer dealing with the FOI request would deliberate the
PIT, they may have assistance from their FOI colleagues, their Manager,
and/or other colleagues across the force dependant on any relevant advice
or information that they need. They may also have assistance from the NPCC
NPFDU.

The Chief Constable or the Home Office would not normally be involved in
decision making regarding a FOI PIT, however, if they were required to
input then they would be included.

The FOI Officer and FOI Manager would make the final decision on
disclosure.

 

I hope that this is of assistance. If you require any further information,
then please e-mail the FOI Unit quoting the above reference number.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Mrs R Williams

 

Rebecca Williams l FOI Manager

Lloyd House l West Midlands Police

 

This email is intended for the addressee only and may contain privileged
or confidential information. If received in error, please notify the
originator immediately. Any unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or
alteration of this email is strictly forbidden. Views or opinions
expressed in this email do not necessarily represent those of West
Midlands Police. All West Midlands Police email activity is monitored for
virus, racist, obscene, or otherwise inappropriate activity. No
responsibility is accepted by West Midlands Police for any loss or damage
arising in any way from the receipt or use of this email.

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