How the MPS deals with public inquiries

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.029569

I note you seek access to the following information:

- Any internal guidance documents on how your organisation (or officials) responds to and cooperates with public inquiries

- Any internal policies that are about (or mostly about) public inquiries (Your organisation may refer to these as statutory inquiries) For the above documents, I am looking for documents within the following period:
- The most up-to-date version within the period of 2010 to now
- If a more restricted period is required, then please use 2018 to now

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) provides public access to information held by public authorities. Public authorities have an obligation to confirm or deny whether the information requested is held and a duty to communicate this to the requester. The Act also lists a number of exemptions, meaning that requests can be refused if a public authority has a good reason why they cannot comply with the request. If any or all parts of a request are refused then a written refusal notice must be sent to the requester.

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)(3) - Personal data

Reason for decision

Section 40(2)(3) - Personal data - When this exemption is claimed, it is accepted that harm would result from disclosure. Section 40(3A)(a) states that public authorities will not disclose information which constitutes personal data and if the disclosure would contravene any of the Data Protection principles.

To disclose all the requested data would publicly reveal information about individuals which would contravene Data Protection principles. The Data Protection Act 2018 defines personal data as any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual. There are six data protection principles set out in section 34 of the DPA 2018 and under Article 5(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The first principle requires personal data to be processed in a ‘lawful and fair’ manner. The basis for determining what constitutes lawful and fair is outlined under section 35 of the DPA. Under section 35(2) it states:

• the data subject has given consent to the processing for that purpose, or
• the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for that purpose by a competent authority.

It is important to note that we do not have the consent of the data subject to release their personal data and the release of the data will not be used for a law enforcement process.

Under Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR, the disclosure of personal data is considered to be lawful if:

• There is a legitimate interest in the disclosure of that personal data.
• The disclosure of the personal data is necessary to meet that legitimate interest.
• The disclosure would not cause unwarranted harm to the data subject.

You have requested any internal guidance documents on how your organisation (or officials) responds to and cooperates with public inquiries. By means of a legitimate interest test I have considered the release of the personal data, and I have found that:

• Disclosing the requested information would provide greater detail into who has written the guidance part 2 document. The legitimate interest in transparency would be further satisfied through the release of this information.

• The member of police staff who wrote the document titled Guidance Part 2 would not reasonably expect their name to be published in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. In this regard, the public release of their personal data would be unexpected, unfair and distressing to the data subject.

Disclosure

Please refer to the PDF’s below