Policy Statement

Summary

The FOIA covers all recorded information held by a public authority. It is not limited to official documents and it covers, for example, drafts, emails, notes, recordings of telephone conversations and CCTV records. It is not limited to information we create, it also covers any information we receive and hold, for example a letter from the member of the public.

The Act also now includes datasets. A dataset is a collection of factual, raw data that we gather as part of providing services and delivering functions as a public authority and that is held in an electronic format.

The Act also covers information held on our behalf, for example a third party may process our payroll or legal compliance etc. They are obliged to supply us with information to respond to a Freedom of Information request.

The EIR cover any recorded information held by public authorities which includes government departments, local authorities, the NHS, police forces and universities, and also other bodies that carry out work that affects the environment.

There are many similarities between the FOIA and EIR and any request for ‘environmental information’ must be answered in accordance with the EIR rather than the FOIA. It is possible that in some cases both regimes will be relevant. In these cases, it is essential to be clear which parts of the information fall under which regime to apply the correct exemption or exception, if information has to be withheld.This policy is therefore to ensure that Humberside Police continues to meet the legal requirements of the FOIA and EIR.

Aims

The aim of this policy is to ensure Humberside Police meets its legal obligations as defined under the FOIA 2000, EIR 2004 and associated Codes of Practice.

The policy ensures the following:

1. The legislative requirements of FOIA and EIR are met in full by the force.
2. FOIA and EIR requests are dealt with within the statutory time period.
3. There is an implemented process for dealing with requests for internal review (appeals).
4. Staff receive relevant training to support the aims of this policy.
5. The force promotes a culture of openness balanced with the need to maintain the integrity of force information.
6. The force proactively publishes information in accordance with the requirements of the Publication Scheme.
7. The force provides context around released information where this is necessary or desirable to fully inform the requester and the public.

The Code of Ethics published in 2014 and revised in 2024 by the College of Policing requires us all to ‘exercise discretion and apply professional judgement, ensuring that actions and decisions are in the public interest and proportionate, lawful and necessary’ and that in doing so we should ‘abide by all instructions, policies and procedures set by the police service’.

The 2024 Code of Ethics is not a statutory Code of Practice, it has the same status as other guidance produced by the College. The Code of Ethics is supported by the Code of Practice for Ethical Policing. This is a statutory Code of Practice which provides chief officers with direction on promoting and supporting ethical and professional behaviour within their forces

Scope

• Humberside Police will ensure that all employees and agents are cognisant with and comply with the requirements of the FOIA and EIR.
• This policy will provide staff with an awareness of the FOIA and EIR.
• This policy sets out the responsibilities of the Force under the Acts.
• The policy sets out the responsibilities of Humberside Police staff under the Acts.

This policy will therefore enable staff to:

1. Identify a request for information under the FOIA  and EIR.
2. Identify when a request is considered “business as usual”.
3. Understand the requirements of the Publication Scheme as defined by s19 of the FOIA.

All staff are subject to the requirements of this policy, including Police Officers, support staff, Special Constables and volunteers, irrespective of employment status and whether full time, part time, casual or temporary.

The Freedom of Information and Environmental Information Regulations policy covers all requests for information made to the force from the 1 January 2005.

Chapter 1 – Principles, Breaches & Appeals

Principles

• The FOIA is about fostering a culture of openness and transparency within public authorities. It is essential to promote public trust in public authorities by making them more accountable. The presumption under FOIA is disclosure as opposed to non-disclosure.
• However, this willingness to disclose has to be balanced against the risks to the force and police service as a whole. Inevitably there will be information that will be harmful to individuals, the community and/or the police service if it were to be disclosed. In these cases, it is right for the police service to look to withhold (exempt) information from disclosure.
• In some cases, a Public Interest Test (PIT) needs to be conducted which will balance the competing views of disclosure versus non-disclosure. The balancing exercise will ultimately decide whether information should be disclosed or not.
• In reality, there is only a small fraction of police information that is not disclosed, and this is generally reserved for the most sensitive areas of policing, where there would be a perceived or actual risk of harm being realised.

Breaches

• The Act is regulated by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) which has various powers to encourage public authorities to comply with the Act, including prosecution of those who commit offences.
• Section 77 of the FOIA states that it is a criminal offence to alter, deface, block, erase, destroy or conceal any record held by the public authority with the intention of preventing its disclosure.
• It may constitute a section 77 offence to fail to supply the Subject Rights Team with information that is requested for consideration for release unless the collation will take over 18 hours.
• Any member of staff committing an offence under section 77 will be held accountable for their actions which may be subject to prosecution.

Appeals

• Enter text Humberside Police have a formalised review process in place to deal with any request for internal review.
• Any request for internal review must be received within 40 working days of the FOI or EIR response being closed. Once a valid request for internal review has been made, Humberside Police will have 20 working days to provide a further response.
• Initially, any internal review will be dealt with by an independent Subject Rights Officer in conjunction with the Subject Rights Manager. However, dependent upon the subject area of the request and potential risk to the force, senior members of the organisation may be involved in a panel meeting.
• Any decisions made in relation to an internal review request are documented in order to show transparency and aid in any future appeal made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Chapter 2 – Policy Procedure

Responsibility

• Freedom of Information requests will be dealt with by the Subject Rights Team. However, any member of staff within the force could potentially deal with a request and must offer assistance to an applicant making a request. Any request for information mentioning the Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations must be emailed to the Information Governance Unit mailbox – [email protected]
• A requester will receive an auto-generated email which will provide acknowledgment of their request and provide the statutory timescales for responding.

Defining a Request

• Humberside Police will accept a request for information from any individual, anywhere in the world. They must provide a valid name (this cannot be fictitious) and a means of correspondence such as an email or postal address. If a request is received via social media, we must also consider if it is appropriate to respond via social media. We would encourage applicants to provide an email address as this makes the process of responding easier and less bureaucratic.
• All correspondence, including those received via social networking sites, that meet the following criteria must be forwarded without delay to the Information Governance Unit to be dealt with in accordance with the Act:
• Any request for information that mentions Freedom of Information within or is addressed to the FOI Officer or FOI Section or Information Governance.
• Once a request has been received, it will need to be assessed to determine if it is a valid FOI or EIR request. Once a request meets the requirements of s8 of the FOI Act or the EIR it will be logged onto the case management system and managed in accordance with the relevant legislation.
• Some requests may be dealt with as ‘business as usual’ and will be forwarded to the relevant business area concerned who will be responsible for dealing with the request.
• If it is unclear as to what the requester is seeking under FOI or EIR, they will be contacted (by email) and asked to clarify their request. The request will be put on hold until clarification is sought. The request will be closed after 20 working days if no clarification is received.
• A request for personal data made under the FOIA will be dealt with under the terms of the Act. However, a request for personal data that makes no mention of FOIA will be dealt with as a Subject Access request (s7 of the Data Protection Act).

Processing the Request

• The Subject Rights Team will be responsible for establishing when a request needs to be referred to the NPCC Central Referral Unit (CRU), as set out in the DPP APP.
• The Subject Rights Team will initially search their case management system to establish if they hold any information relevant to the information being requested. They will also check any other sources available to them such as local systems, the Publication Scheme including the Disclosure Log, and open sources. A list will also be prepared on a weekly basis of all requests received and circulated to Seniors Officers and other relevant stakeholders including Corporate Communications so they may identify which requests are submitted through the media and highlight to the Subject Rights Team any of particular interest. The Subject Rights Manager will review the list and highlight any requests that require raising with relevant business areas and the team will also provide notification to Corporate Communications at the earliest opportunity following receipt of a request from media, which is of an obviously sensitive nature.
• Corporate Communications will provide context and a statement where necessary for media and sensitive requests, as well as those which touch upon matters already being dealt with by Corporate Communications. The Subject Rights Team will send out the request to the information owners once they have exhausted the above. Each information owner/business area will have dedicated Single Point of Contact (SPOC) who will be responsible for assisting with the request.
• The Act allows 20 working days in which to process and respond to the request, therefore we require that information owners provide any held data to the Subject Rights Team within 8 working days. It will also be incumbent upon the information owners to provide details of any harm in respect of any potential disclosure and any caveat that they may wish to be included within the response. Once collated and prepared by the SPOC, they must seek approval from the Head of Department so they can consider any reputational risk and additional context required. Further advice to the Head of Department on these issues is available from the Subject Rights Team or from Corporate Communications

Please contact the Information Governance Unit if either of the following apply:

• Any request where there is a desire NOT to disclose the information (so relevant exemptions can be considered by FOI Team).
• If the information cannot be supplied within the statutory 20 working days timescale.
• If the FOI Decision Maker has any concerns in relation to information returned and the release of that information, the request should be escalated to the Subject Rights Manager or Head of Information Governance for consideration.
• In exceptional cases, the force may extend the time for complying with an EIR request by a further 20 days if it is established there are considerable public interest considerations. In these cases, the applicant will be notified of this extension as soon as is practical.
• A fee will not normally be charged for processing an FOI or EIR request. However, the force will adhere to the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees Regulations) 2004 when considering the cost of complying with a request.
• If it is determined that a request would take Humberside Police longer than 18 hours (or as a cost equivalent £450) to locate, retrieve and extract information, it will be declined under s12 of the Act.
• Where it is established the information requested is held by another Public Authority, the request will be formally transferred to that Public Authority. The applicant will be made aware of this and the request will be closed by the Subject Rights Team.

Providing a response

• E S1(1) (a) and S1(1) (b) of the FOI Act requires that Humberside Police confirms or denies whether we hold the information relevant to the request and to communicate that information to the applicant (subject to exemptions). Therefore, the applicant will be provided with a written response via email or via the postal system if email cannot be received.
• Should a request be declined due to excess cost, the applicant will be notified of this in writing with a s17 refusal notice. The applicant will be given the opportunity to refine their request in order to reduce the costs shown.
• If information is retrievable within cost and is suitable for disclosure, the applicant will receive that information within the statutory 20 working days and, where necessary, explanation will be provided in relation to the information.
• If the information is available by other means, the applicant will be directed to that information within the response and be provided with a s17 refusal notice.
• If the information is wholly or partially exempt from disclosure, the applicant will again receive s17 refusal notice.
• Information that is subject to a qualified exemption will require a Public Interest Test (PIT). Some qualified exemptions are prejudice based, meaning harm sometimes needs to be illustrated along with the PIT. If the information attracts a qualified class-based exemption, the harm has already been established and does not need to be illustrated to the applicant. Again, when information is being refused, a s17 refusal notice needs to be supplied.
• If a request is considered a vexatious request, a s17 refusal notice will be issued. Once a request becomes vexatious, any further requests from the applicant concerning the same or similar subject area will neither be acknowledged nor responded to.
• If the request is a repeated request that is identical or substantially similar to a request Humberside Police has previously complied with, it is not obliged to deal with that request until a reasonable interval has passed. The FOIA does not define what is meant by a reasonable interval but it is suggested that 60 days may be a useful benchmark, and this is supported by both NPCC and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). In these circumstances, the applicant will receive a s17 notice detailing when they will be entitled to apply again.
• All responses will illustrate the right of appeal as set out in the relevant chapter.
• Corporate Communications are responsible for highlighting which cases they require sight of prior to release. Where there are concerns, responses to Media requests will be sent to Corporate Communications prior to release.

Redaction of Information

• Information that has been identified as being exempt under the FOIA will be redacted. A relevant exemption will be stamped next to any redacted information so it is apparent which exemption is being applied.

Supplying the information

• Humberside Police will generally provide information in an electronic format that is in a permanent form e.g. PDF. However, information can be supplied in hard copy should the applicant request this. If an applicant requests information be supplied in a particular format, Humberside Police will make every effort to comply with this as long as it is reasonably practicable to do so. However, this would be subject to any associated costs.

Chapter 3 – Publication scheme

Publication Scheme

• The force will maintain its Publication Scheme by adhering to the NPCC minimum standards of publication and ICO guidance on Publication Schemes.
• The force will pro-actively publish information including environmental information by categories on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis.
• The force will have nominated SPOCs to collate the relevant information required for publication. The SPOCs will send the information to Corporate Communications for publication.

Disclosure Log

• Humberside Police will look to proactively publish its FOI responses on a regular basis. FOI responses will generally be published where they are commonly requested or they are of public interest.
• The Disclosure Log also forms part of the Publication Scheme; although not a mandatory requirement of publication, it will assist in promoting further transparency. The Disclosure Log will assist frequent requesters in establishing what information is commonly published and it can be used as a source of information. It will also assist prospective requesters in understanding what types of requests are made and how Humberside Police responded to those requests.

Additional Information

This policy complies with the following legislation, policy and guidance:

• Freedom of Information Act 2000
• Data Protection Act 2018
• UK GDPR

The supporting information for this policy can be accessed via:

• Freedom of Information Act 2000
• Environmental Information Regulations 2004
• Equality Act 2010 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Management of police information | College of Policing
• NPCC FOI Manual of Guidance