Complaints of alleged homophobia or transphobia made against serving MPS officers from 2018

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.030278

I note you seek access to the following information:

Please provide details of any other punishments issued towards those officers who were found to have perpetrated homophobic or transphobic abuse towards members of the public.

What was the total number of complaints of alleged homophobia or transphobia made against serving police officers in your force by other serving police officers in the years:
2023 (up to present); 2022; 2021; 2020; 2019; 2018

How many of these complaints led to disciplinary proceedings and, of these, how many were upheld? Please provide this information by calendar year.

How many of the officers against whom complaints were made were dismissed as a result of the complaint being upheld? Please provide this information by calendar year.

Please provide details of any other punishments issued towards those officers who were found to have perpetrated homophobic or transphobic abuse towards their colleagues.

What was the total number of complaints of alleged homophobia or transphobia made against serving police officers in your force by members of the public in the years:
2023 (up to present); 2022; 2021; 2020; 2019; 2018

How many of these complaints led to disciplinary proceedings, and of these, how many were upheld? Please provide this information by calendar year.

How many of the officers against whom complaints were made were dismissed as a result of the complaint being upheld? Please provide this information by calendar year.

Please provide details of any other punishments issued towards those officers who were found to have perpetrated homophobic or transphobic abuse towards their colleagues.

How many serving police officers are currently being investigated for alleged homophobia or transphobia?

Of those, please can you provide:
The total number of officers that have been permitted to fulfil their duties as usual
The total number of officers that have been placed on restricted duties pending the outcome of an investigation
The total number of officers that have been suspended from duty
The total number of officers that have left the force

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

The Section 40(2) Exemption has been utilised due to low numbers which have been removed, that is, numbers 0 – 3 have been replaced with [x]. The MPS believes that release of these low numbers could lead to the identification of individuals. This constitutes personal data which would be in breach of the rights provided by the DPA (Data protection Act) 2018 and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), if released.

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.

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 low numbers (0 – 3) could lead to the identification of individuals which is 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.

Disclosure

Please find refer to Excel Spreadsheet with the data requested, with the exception of the low numbers referenced above.