Officers disciplined for misconduct from November 2018 to October 2023

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.033570

I note you seek access to the following information:

Specifically, I would like to request data regarding officers who have been disciplined for misconduct within MPS over the past five years.

I kindly request the following information for each case:
The rank of the officer involved.
The date and nature of the misconduct.
The disciplinary action taken as a result of the misconduct.
Any relevant case numbers or references.

I believe that this information is of public interest and can help to ensure transparency and accountability within the police force.

Please provide the requested data for cases occurring between 01 October 2018 and 01 October 2023.

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)(3(a)(i)(ii)(b) - Personal information - Section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 confirms that information which relates to an identified or identifiable living individual is Personal Data. The Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption for Personal Data and this is known as the section 40 exemption.

The information you have requested is considered by the MPS to be personal to the officers concerned. Where the request is seeking access to third party personal data the section 40(2) exemption may be engaged.

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(A) 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 the Personal Data 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 requested records contain personal data that I consider to be exempt under the Act. This relates to the parts of your request detailed below which asks for -

The rank of the officer involved
Any relevant case numbers or references

Number of officers by rank of Inspector and above

Our data returned low numbers for the rank Inspector and above. The public release of each allegation of police officers misconduct alongside a breakdown of each rank would likely to lead to identification. Identification would occur as those internal/external to the MPS that have some awareness of each allegation, would be able to identify each employee and/or the personal details of the accuser(s).

Case numbers or references

Any reference numbers held in relation to this request have also been withheld as this is personal to the individuals involved and any release may lead to the identification of individuals.

Disclosure

Please find below spreadsheet. To reduce the harm with disclosure, we have provided you with data for the ranks of Constable, Sergeant, Inspector and above grouped.