Fertility Leave Policy

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.025268

I note you seek access to the following information:

1. Can I be provided with a copy of your fertility leave policy and guidance to line managers?
2. Does this policy apply met wide or does individual BCUs have their own policies and procedures?
3. If each BCU does have their own local procedure can you provide me with local policies for EA, NE, CE.
4. What information would a line manager need to know from an employee in order to authorise fertility leave?

Decision

I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information. Some data has been withheld as it is exempt from disclosure and therefore this response serves as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 40(2) – Personal Information

Reason for decision

Section 40(2)(a)(b) and (3)(a)(i) - Personal Information - This is an absolute exemption which means that the legislators have identified that harm would be caused by any release. In addition there is no requirement to consider the public interest test.

In order to apply the Section 40(2) exemption the disclosure of the requested information must satisfy either the first, second or third conditions as defined by subsections 3(a), 3(b) and 4(c) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

The first condition ensures that the exemption would apply in circumstances where the disclosure of the information would breach any of the Data Protection Act 2018 principles.

There are six Data Protection principles set out in the 2018 act and these can be found at section 34.

In this instance I have decided that the disclosure of numbers below 5 may lead to the identification of individuals. This constitutes Personal Data which would be incompatible with the first Data Protection principle which states that the processing (in this case the disclosure) of the data must be both lawful and fair.

The Section 40(2) Exemption has been utilised because the name of the author at the top of each page has been redacted. This is represented by a black space xxxxxx.

It is important to note that a Freedom of Information Act request is not a private transaction. Both the request itself and any information disclosed are considered suitable for open publication, that is, once access to information is granted to one person under the Act, it is then considered public information and must be communicated to any individual should a request be received. Any information released under the Act is also published on the MPS website.

Disclosure

Please find attached document as requested with responses to Q. 1, 2 & 4 in a redacted format as indicated above. With reference to Q.3, please note that this policy is MPS-wide.