Police staff dismissed in 2021 & 2022

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.028154

I note you seek access to the following information:

I would like the figures for the past two years (or one if this is held to be a case of being outside of the timescale resource limit) of the number of police officers and staff dismissed, against those who retained their job, due to a receipt of a criminal conviction, what this conviction is (again, if this does not impact on the timeframe resource limit), and their ethnicity.”

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the requested information. However, it has been presented in a different way to that requested in order to mitigate the risk of identification, which would be higher if the data was not presented in an amalgamated way.

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)(3A)(a) – Personal Information

Reason for decision

Section 40(2)(3A)(a) – Personal Information - Data disclosed in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act is disclosed to the world, and not just to the individual requesting the information. This is best demonstrated by the FOI disclosures on the Disclosure Log section of the MPS website.

You have requested specific record level data. This level of information is not suitable for public consumption. Should the MPS publish data at the level requested, it would be at a level that would make the identification of these individuals extremely possible. To produce and publish conviction related information at a level that would identify the involved parties would not be lawful, fair or in line with our processing commitments. Thus, disclosure of the information at record level is exempt in accordance with section 40(2)(3A)(a) of the Act.

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, referred to above.

The information sought under your Freedom of Information request is at such a level that, if disclosed, would provide enough detail (offence, ethnicity, timeframe and working status) to identify the individuals involved.

In addition, the requested information also constitutes personal data relating to criminal offences (as defined in GDPR Article 10 and Section 11(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018), specifically information relating to:

- proceedings for an offence committed or alleged to have been committed by one or more data subjects or the disposal of such proceedings, including sentencing.

The ICO’s guidance titled ‘Personal information (section 40 and regulation 13) states:

‘In order for you to disclose criminal offence data lawfully, under Article 10 of the GDPR, in addition to an Article 6 basis for processing, the disclosure must either:
- be carried out under the control of official authority; or
- meet a specific condition in Schedule 1 of the DPA.

In the UK there is currently no definition of an official authority in this context. Therefore, for the purpose of considering the disclosure of such information under FOIA or the EIR, you need to consider whether any of the conditions in Schedule 1 of the DPA apply…

Due to its sensitivity, the conditions for processing criminal offence data are very restrictive and generally concern specific, stated purposes. Consequently, only two are relevant to allow you to lawfully disclose under FOIA or the EIR. These are:
- consent from the data subject; or
- the processing relates to personal data which has clearly been made public by the individual concerned.

If a relevant condition cannot be met, you must not disclose the information as disclosure would be unlawful and therefore in contravention of principle (a).’

The processing of this data by way of disclosure for the purposes of responding to a FOIA request does not meet a specific condition within Schedule 1 of the DPA.

When looking at disclosing the requested information, I have also considered other pieces of guidance, including the ICO’s guidance titled ‘Crime mapping and geo-spatial crime data: privacy and transparency’, which examines a number of issues relating to the disclosure of crime data. This guidance can be found at the following url:
ICO - Crime-mapping and geo-spatial crime data: privacy and transparencypdf

This guidance suggests that the following factors are relevant in relation to ensuring that the publication of crime maps (and essentially therefore low level, potentially identifying personal crime data) comply with the Data Protection Act 2018:
• The granularity of the crime-map or data,
• The regularity of data uploads,
• The sensitivity of the crime,
• The information recorded on the map,
• The availability of other sources of information and,
• The effect on victims and others.

As the information you have requested is not directly relating to the publication of crime maps, I have, when looking at the data, considered the following, broadly equivalent factors when making my decision:
• The granularity of the data
• The availability of other sources of information
• The effect on the individuals in question.

It is often believed that statistical information, even if detailed, is unlikely to allow anyone to actually identify those involved as the data is ‘too abstract’ and ‘there would be no way of knowing who these people were unless you were there’ for example. However, when considering identifiability, we have to assume that we are not looking just at the means reasonably likely to be used by the ordinary man in the street, but also the means that are likely to be used by a determined person (or a ‘motivated intruder’) with a particular reason to want to identify individuals. Examples would include investigative journalists, estranged partners, stalkers, to name but a few.

If this level of data was to be disclosed, it could be pieced together with information already known by individuals or already in the public domain in order to identify the individuals involved. To disclose the information requested in a linear way may allow individuals to ascertain or infer that a specific case relates to a particular individual. This would be unfair to those involved.

Considering this, I believe disclosing this low level data in the format requested would definitely enable motivated individuals to identify those involved. We must also consider the understandable level of interest in this subject at the moment, and the fact that people would be likely to be more motivated to look into these cases and identify those concerned.

Therefore, where the request is seeking information that would essentially allow access to third party personal data (such as in this case) 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.

Disclosure

Officers and Staff with Criminal Convictions Dismissed in the last two years (01/01/2021 to 31/12/2022).

Dismissals by offence:
Corruption	1
Criminal Damage	1
Drugs	1
Misc/malfeasance in a Public Office	4
Perjury	1
Sexual offence	7
Theft	1
Traffic	5
Violence against the person	13
Other	8
Total	42

 

Dismissals by ethnicity:
White	31
Black	1
Asian	7
Other	2
Unknown	1
Total	42

 

Non dismissals by offence:
Criminal Damage	1
Traffic	4
Other	2
Total	7

 

Non dismissals by ethnicity:
White	4
Black	1
Asian	1
Other	1
Total	7

Notes:
These cases are those with hearings that occurred in the last two years, regardless of when the offence took place.

Conviction data was taken from what was recorded on the court screen on Centurion.