Wordpress Npcc
Millard Winnin
2. Please direct me to the NPCC policy documents that support the proposition in this APP document that "Chief officers have statutory obligations in relation to the FOIA and will be held to account for breaches of the legislation".
3. Please provide any notes of meetings convened by the lead officer, either for the purpose or at which breaches of the Act and sanctions (holding to account) flowing from those breaches was discussed.
5. In the case of North Yorkshire Police (NYP) it has been established that in the past three years that there have been 1,558 breaches of FOIA (there are also 103 breaches of the Data Protection Act in the same period). These is a quantitive analysis disclosed by the force, via recent FOIA requests, based on finalisations outside the statutory 20 working day period. A dip sample, qualitative analysis shows that the problem is actually much worse than the bare figures would imply. Research shows that the problem existed, on a similar scale, at least as far back as 2011. The information requested therefore is:
a. Has the chief officer of NYP referred himself to the NPCC over these breaches?
b. Were the NPCC, or their FOIA lead, aware, by any other means, of these breaches? For example via this published article or via social media or the WhatDoTheyKnow website:
-c...
c. Are the NYP breaches of a scale that would attract a 'holding to account' by the NPCC?
d. What are the range of sanctions available to the NPCC in these circumstances if a 'holding to account' process was to be invoked?
I would be grateful if you could provide some clarification in regards to part 3 of your request. What is meant by breaches? Are you requesting recorded information in relation to non-compliance with time compliance (S10)? Or are you seeking information in relation to the offence of altering records with intent to prevent disclosure (S77)?
Q1. Thank you for the information concerning Ian Redhead. No further question or complaint arises. I am, however, drawn to a press comment he made on 5th July, 2016 the relevance of which becomes more clear at Q's 2, 3, 4, and 5.
"Public trust is key to good policing. Abuse of that trust is unacceptable and, in the rare cases where staff fail to meet our high professional standards, they will be held to account and dealt with appropriately."
Q2. As an investigative journalist, I am also an experienced FOIA practitioner and very familiar with the ICO, all ICO Guidance and the College of Policing's APP on FOI. Your response does not, however, address at all the main thrust of the question: 'I am particularly looking for information as to what 'holding to account' amounts to. For example, and by way of clarification, what sanctions are applied by the NPCC, and by whom, to chief officers (who are also, by default, data controllers) who persistently breach the Act?
Q3. The man on the Clapham omnibus would find it extraordinary that, if the NPCC publish information to the effect that chief officers are held to account over FOIA breaches, there are no meetings at which potential breaches, actual breaches or sanctions has ever been discussed. In those circumstances, one has to question the role of Mr Redhead and its terms of reference. Accordingly, you are invited to search again for the information requested. I have located this weblink which may be of assistance to you:
Q4. Perhaps the question wasn't phrased as concisely as it might have been? It was intended to draw disclosure of action that the NPCC had taken in the years mentioned, not that taken by the ICO. Can (ayou please. therfore, re-address the question in that light?
At (b) it is my submission that the information by which the breaches came to light should have been disclosed. That is to say all the quarterly returns that highlighted the fact that the chief constable of North Yorkshire was in persistent and flagrant breach of the Act.
At (c) and (d) your responses would again perplex the man on the Clapham omnibus. The inference being that the NPCC has set out to deliberately mislead both the policing community and the wider public by way of the proposition that there is a mechanism for either' holding to account', or applying sanctions over FOIA breaches. In the light of the potential seriousness of such an admission you are invited to search for the requested information again.
Neil,
I think it is unikely that you will get the answer you want.
Mr Readhead was complained of previously to Hampshire police authority when he was DCC and the force was supplied with a statement concerning an allegation of breach of RIPA and other concerns.
At an ET he was accused of threatening a police whistleblower at his home address whilst the officer was off sick.
He set up ACRO prior to retiring and there are news articles on his annual salary for that, there are some concerns regarding how this was all set up and located in Hampshire.
Mr Readhead also features in goodcopdown.wordpress.com
Good luck with this request, we will monitor its progress.
Thank you for your annotation:
May I ask the following?
1. What was the allegation made in the complaint made against Mr Redhead to HPA - and the complaint outcome.
2. Can I have a copy of the statment made in support of the HPA complaint?
3. If it explicitly mentions Mr Redhead, can I have a copy of the ET judgment to which you refer?
4. What, specifically, are concerns regarding how ACRO was all set up by Mr Redhead and located in Hampshire?
Finally, I cannot locate a reference to Mr Redhead on the goodcopdown website.
Any assistance you can provide would be helpful to me in substantiating an article I am writing. This concerns the NPCC's (and Mr Redhead's) seeming lack of rigour over industrial scale data and information breaches.