Cost and Demand of Mental Health to MPS 2018 publication

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.025029

I note you seek access to the following information:

I am looking for the publication - Cost and Demand of Mental Health to the Metropolitan Police Service and the Public, Metropolitan Police Service, 2018.

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)(a)(b) & (3)(a)(i)) - Personal Information

Reason for decision

Under Section 40(2) and (3) of the Act, Public Authorities are able to withhold information where its release would identify any living individual and breach the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

The document you have requested contains the names of the MPS officers who own the document, and the names of contributing officers. These have been redacted from the document as the names of these officers are considered personal information; their names are not currently in the public domain and were we to release their names in connection with the document this would breach the right to privacy afforded to persons under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Furthermore, the document also includes cases studies within which the dates of incidents/arrests and the ages of individuals concerned, are disclosed. This information could identify individuals and when released alongside the case studies would release sensitive personal information in relation to those individuals into the public domain. As outlined previously, this would breach the right to privacy afforded to persons under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The individuals concerned would not reasonably expect their names to be released in response to a Freedom of Information Request, nor would they reasonably expect to be identified and have sensitive information about them published by the MPS, and I have found that as no prior consent has been given to release this personal data any release would accordingly be unfair to any individuals concerned. In the case of legitimate processing we do not consider that it is appropriate to release this information.

Section 40(2)(a)(b)&(3)(a)(i) – Personal Information - Under Section 40(2) and (3) of the Act, Public Authorities are able to withhold information where its release would identify any living individual and breach the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA). I have applied this exemption in that the disclosure of the requested information could cause a living person's identity to be revealed and would release sensitive personal information about individuals into the public domain.

If this occurs due to the information provided by the MPS, this constitutes personal data, which would be in breach of the rights provided by the DPA.

The eight principles of the DPA govern the way in which data controllers must manage personal data. Under principle one of the DPA, personal data must be processed fairly and lawfully.

Please see the Disclosure section below for information that has been located and assessed as suitable for disclosure.

Disclosure

Please find the requested document attached. As already outlined above, this has been redacted.