Officers medically retired so far in 2024

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.24.038253

I note you seek access to the following information:

1 – How many Officers have been medically retired in 2024 so far to the date of this FOI request?
Please compile the data in an Excel table ensuring that a rows and/or columns clarify the following aspects:
A – The rank of each Officer medically retired by the MPS
B – The length of service of each Officer medically retired by the MPS
C - The date (i.e. DDMMYYYY) of the medical retirement.
To be clear, I am not requesting personal information such as name, station or similar.

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

I have made the decision to disclose the number of officers, the rank of each officer and the length of their service. However, we have withheld the date of the medical retirement as we believe it could lead to the identification of individuals. Any such disclosure could release personal information into the public domain. The ICO guidance states that “… you do not have to know someone’s name for them to be directly identifiable, a combination of other identifiers may be sufficient to identify the individual. If an individual is directly identifiable from the information, this may constitute personal data”.

Section 40(2)(a)(b) – Personal Information - of the Act, public authorities are able to withhold information where its release would identify any living individual and breach the principles of the DPA 2018. I have applied this exemption as I believe that providing the date of the medical retirement of officers could lead to the identification of individuals. The ICO guidance states that “… you do not have to know someone’s name for them to be directly identifiable, a combination of other identifiers may be sufficient to identify the individual. If an individual is directly identifiable from the information, this may constitute personal data”.

The six 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.

I consider that the release of the dates of the medical retirement of officers constitutes personal data. The release of this information would be unfair as the person(s) concerned would have no reasonable expectation that the MPS would make this information publicly available. In reaching my decision, I have, in each case, given due regard to the condition at Article 6(1) (a) and 6(1) (e) of the GDPR. Condition one of the GDPR requires that consideration is given to whether consent for disclosure has been given whilst Condition six requires that consideration is given to performance of a public task in the public interest.

Disclosure

Please see the below table for the answer to question 1 and part A of your request:

Please see the below table for the answer to part B of your request: