Use of RIPA

[Name Removed] made this Freedom of Information request to City of York Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was successful.

Dear City of York Council,

I am writing to request details on the use of surveillance,
interception and investigation by City of York Council.
Specifically:

1) How many Council employees have the power to authorise the use
of Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act investigations,
interceptions or surveillance (RIPA powers), and what is their
seniority within the council?

2) How many times has RIPA powers been used in the last 10 years?
On what dates were the requests made and by whom?

3) For what purposes were RIPA powers used, what type of
investigation was being undertaken? What was the motivation for
using RIPA powers? Please provide details for the past 10 years.

4) Over the past 10 years, by each year, how many people have been
prosecuted as a result of evidence gathered through the use of
RIPA-sanctioned investigations, and how many of these prosecutions
have led to convictions?

5) How many complaints have been raised to the council for misuse
of investigatory powers? And how many of these complaints were
escalated to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (if any).

Yours faithfully,
[Name Removed]

foi@york.gov.uk, City of York Council

Thank you for your enquiry. We will ensure it is passed to the relevant service(s) and you will receive a response within 20 working days. We will contact you if we have any queries, need clarification or to let you know if we need more time to answer your enquiry in full.

However, if you are contacting us to ask for a review of a previous FOI response from us, we will pass your request to Veritau/Information Governance who will contact you about this.

Please note this is an automatically generated receipt to let you know we have received your email.

Regards
Customer Feedback Team

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Dear York City Council,
This is a courtesy message that a response should be received by tomorrow (27th January) at the very latest for the FOI request dated 24th December, ref: 'Use of RIPA'.

Yours sincerely,

[Name Removed]

Beane, Robert,

1 Attachment

Dear [Name Removed]
 
The information you requested about the council’s use of surveillance,
interception and investigation is as follows:
 
1) How many Council employees have the power to authorise the use of
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act investigations, interceptions or
surveillance (RIPA powers), and what is their seniority within the
council?

Four. In addition, the Chief Executive may authorise certain types of
application. The council does not use the term “seniority” or apply it to
posts or individuals, but all could reasonably be described as senior
managers.
 
2) How many times has RIPA powers been used in the last 10 years?
On what dates were the requests made and by whom?
 
Please see the attached list of dates of authorisations, from which you
will learn the number of times powers were used:
It appears that in your second question you wish applicants to be
identified by name. This is the personal data of those concerned and,
where it is still held, would identify investigators and others whose
identities are not made public in case of hostile reaction from those they
have investigated. This data is therefore withheld under Sections 38
(Health & Safety) and 40(2) (personal data).
 
3) For what purposes were RIPA powers used, what type of investigation was
being undertaken? What was the motivation for using RIPA powers? Please
provide details for the past 10 years.
 
In every case the purpose has been the prevention and detection of crime,
the only one permitted to a local authority. All investigations were
criminal investigations. No motivation for using RIPA powers is recorded.
 
4) Over the past 10 years, by each year, how many people have been
prosecuted as a result of evidence gathered through the use of
RIPA-sanctioned investigations, and how many of these prosecutions have
led to convictions?
 
This information is not held. It is not possible to link prosecutions to
RIPA authorisations. Each authorisation contributes to an investigation,
and may provide some of the evidence that might eventually lead to such an
outcome; but there is no direct causal link.
 
5) How many complaints have been raised to the council for misuse of
investigatory powers? And how many of these complaints were escalated to
the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (if any).
 
None, and none
 
I hope this is satisfactory. You may if you wish ask for my decision to
withhold names at Q2 to be reviewed, by email to [1][City of York Council request email]. If
you do so and are still not satisfied you may complain to the Information
Commissioner by email at [2][email address] or write to:
First Contact Team
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
 
Yours sincerely
Robert Beane
Robert Beane
Information Governance Manager
Veritau Limited | Veritau North Yorkshire Limited
Assurance Services for the Public Sector
Telephone:
CYC - 01904 552933
NYCC - 01609 533219
Mobile - 07534 434699
E-mail: [3][email address]
 
For further information about the company please visit our website
[4]www.veritau.co.uk
 
 
 
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Dear Robert Beane,
Thank you for your response in regards to the use of RIPA by the City of York Council. I would like to clarify the ambiguity in part two of my request, for which you have only provided me with an extremely minimal level of detail:
"How many times has RIPA powers been used in the last 10 years?
On what dates were the requests made and by whom?"

To clarify, I am not requesting the personal details of who made RIPA requests, but the name of the council department or directorate requesting/requiring the investigation, or the department who would act on the information from such an investigation.

For example, if an investigation was to look into the sale of counterfeit goods, the council's Trading Standards department would probably make the request for an investigation.

In this identical request to Derbyshire County Council (available publicly here: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r...), you can see the level of detail provided in their response is excellent. They have provided me with a full log including: date of request, council department conducting the investigation, and a brief description of the investigation. Their response shows no personally identifiable details, and contains the level of detail I was expecting from the City of York Council too.

If you are unable to provide a useful level of detail, as I have described above, I will have to request a review into your reasons for declining.

Yours sincerely,
[Name Removed]

Dear City of York Council and Robert Beane,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of City of York Council's handling of my FOI request 'Use of RIPA'.

Thank you for your response in regards to the use of RIPA by the
City of York Council. I would like to clarify the ambiguity in part
two of my request, for which you have only provided me with an
extremely minimal level of detail:
"How many times has RIPA powers been used in the last 10 years?
On what dates were the requests made and by whom?"

To clarify, I am not requesting the personal details of who made
RIPA requests, but the name of the council department or
directorate requesting/requiring the investigation, or the
department who would act on the information from such an
investigation.

For example, if an investigation was to look into the sale of
counterfeit goods, the council's Trading Standards department would
probably make the request for an investigation.

In identical requests to Derbyshire County Council and Chesterfield Borough Council (available
publicly here:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r... and here: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r...),
you can see the level of detail provided in their response is
excellent. They have provided me with a full log including: date of
request, council department conducting the investigation, and a
brief description of the investigation. Their response shows no
personally identifiable details, and contains the level of detail I
was expecting from the City of York Council too.

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

Yours faithfully,

[Name Removed]

foi@york.gov.uk, City of York Council

Thank you for your enquiry. We will ensure it is passed to the relevant service(s) and you will receive a response within 20 working days. We will contact you if we have any queries, need clarification or to let you know if we need more time to answer your enquiry in full.

However, if you are contacting us to ask for a review of a previous FOI response from us, we will pass your request to Veritau/Information Governance who will contact you about this.

Please note this is an automatically generated receipt to let you know we have received your email.

Regards
Customer Feedback Team

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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foi@york.gov.uk, City of York Council

Dear [Name Removed]

Your email has been received by Robert Beane and ourselves, Mr Beane conducts reviews of Freedom of Information requests.
You should receive an acknowledgement to your request from Mr Beane in due course.

City of York Council | Complaints Team, Customer & Business Support Services
West Offices, Station Rise, YO1 6GA
www.york.gov.uk | facebook.com/cityofyork | @CityofYork

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Beane, Robert,

1 Attachment

Dear [Name Removed]
 
Thankyou for explaining that you want to know the name of the council
department or directorate requesting/requiring the investigation for each
RIPA authorisation. I have attached a new spreadsheet identifying a
service with each of the dates. You will see that there are only three –
housing benefits, child protection, and trading standards.
I hope this is satisfactory, although in preparing the list I noticed an
error in my earlier reply, a date on which no authorisation was granted (7
July 2009). The new list therefore has one item fewer than the old list,
for which I apologise.
 
Yours sincerely
Robert Beane
Robert Beane
Information Governance Manager
Veritau Limited | Veritau North Yorkshire Limited
Assurance Services for the Public Sector
Telephone:
CYC - 01904 552933
NYCC - 01609 533219
Mobile - 07534 434699
E-mail: [email address]
 
For further information about the company please visit our website
[1]www.veritau.co.uk
 
 
 
 
SAVE COSTS - PLEASE DON'T PRINT UNLESS YOU HAVE TO

VERITAU EMAIL DISCLAIMER

This communication is from a Veritau group company. Veritau provides
internal audit, counter fraud and information governance services and
other related assurance services to the public sector. Any opinions or
statements expressed in this e-mail are those of the individual and not
necessarily those of Veritau, or its clients.

The information contained within, and in any attachment(s), is
confidential and legally privileged. It is for the exclusive use of the
intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient(s), please
note that any form of distribution, copying or use of this communication,
or the information within, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.
Equally, you must not disclose all, or part, of its contents to any other
person.

If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender
at the above address, then delete and destroy all copies of it.

Veritau's computer systems and communications may be monitored to ensure
effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes.

Although we have endeavoured to ensure that this e-mail and any
attachments are free from any virus we would advise you to take any
necessary steps to ensure that they are actually virus free.

Veritau disclaims any liability for action taken in reliance on the
content of this communication.

Veritau Limited (6794890) and Veritau North Yorkshire Limited (7931990)
are companies registered in England and Wales. The registered office for
both companies is West Offices, Station Rise, York, YO1 6GA.

Please visit the Veritau website [2]www.veritau.co.uk for details of each
company’s ownership.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.veritau.co.uk/
2. http://www.veritau.co.uk/