Misconduct investigations and various questions related to the MPS

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.024962

I note you seek access to the following information:

I am conducting research and I would like to ask the following under the FOI Act in order to complete this research.

1. How many misconduct investigations are conducted each year (which originated internally within your force and have been investigated locally or independently by the IOPC? Please provide 3 years of data)
2. How many of these relate to Abuse of Power for Sexual Purpose (APSP) allegations?
3. How many of the APSP cases are referred to the IOPC?
4. How many cases relate to allegations of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)?
5. How many cases relate to other forms of Police Sexual Misconduct (PSM)?
6. How many cases relate to sexist/misogynistic behaviour?
7. In how many of the identified investigation types (APSP/PSM/VAWG/misogynistic behaviour) has the alleged offender been previously investigated for similar allegations?
8. Under what circumstances would PSM/APSP allegations be referred to the IOPC?
9. How many of the ‘offenders’ are male/female?
10. How many of the victims are male/female?
11. What is the ratio of male:female employees?
12. What proportion of senior officers or senior staff are female?
13. Do officers & staff have to work towards performance driven targets? If so what are the targets?
14. What work is being actively undertaken to identify cases of APSP/PSM?
15. What additional work is being conducted to establish why this type of police misconduct is occurring (APSP/PSM)?
16. What has been identified from this work?
17. What is being done to address the current police culture in order to make policing a more ethical and inclusive workplace (particularly in relation to sexist/misogynistic behaviours)?
18. Who is ultimately responsible for addressing the policing culture?
19. What control measures are in place to safeguard against misogynistic or sexist attitudes/VAWG/APSP/PSM.
20. What training is given in these areas? How often is this delivered? Have all officers and staff received this training?
21. How do you ensure police officers and staff are familiar with the code of ethics? Do they need to sign a declaration to confirm they have read and understand the document? How often?
22. Do the government provide any support to tackle the issues identified (APSP/PSM/VAWG/misogynistic)? If so what?
23. Do you have a specialist department to investigate internal allegations of this nature?
24. Are the outcomes of the identified misconduct investigations advertised within the force? If so, are all outcomes published, or is there a differentiation dependent on the case type and severity? Where are they published?
25. How do you ensure that senior officers and senior staff are held accountable and their actions are transparent to the rest of the force?
26. Is there an available whistleblowing process?
27. How is this advertised?
28. What support is in place for whistle-blowers?
29. Does your force engage with the local community/community agencies in order to encourage them to report inappropriate behaviour? If so how and what agencies?
30. Do you have any supportive action initiatives to ensure a representative workforce? If so please explain what these are.

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 -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 relates to Q’s. 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6. This is because numbers less than 5 have been redacted as the MPS believes that it could lead to the identification of individuals. This is represented by a black space (xx) within the tables.

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 with responses to all 30 questions.

Please note that this has been provided in a redacted format as indicated above.

Caveat:
Date Range in the attached Stats: 01/1/2019-31/05/2022.
Please note that one case may appear on multiple allegation types.