Training (488A/22)
Request
I would like to ascertain the amount spent and the number of staff trained each year for the years between 2018 and 2022.
Staff includes all full and part time staff. Training includes all internal and external training that the department has incurred an expenditure on. This expenditure does not include indirect costs (i.e. lodgings/ travelling for training).
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
However, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see following table). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of the request. Beyond this I am unable to suggest any practical way in which your request may be modified in order to satisfy your query or bring it within the 18 hours stipulated by the Regulations:
| Learning & Org Development: | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
| Actual | Actual | Actual | Actual | |
| £ | £ | £ | £ | |
| Training Courses & Material (external training) | 574,095 | 745,337 | 1,258,660 | 2,069,687 |
| Professional Subscriptions & Fees | 1,423 | 974 | 0 | 929 |
| Professional Services | 120,956 | 27,448 | 8,354 | 206,958 |
| Publications | 500 | 0 | 279 | 20,118 |
| Total | 696,974 | 773,758 | 1,267,293 | 2,297,691 |
REASON FOR DECISION
This information is not centrally collated, therefore in order to try and determine the amount spent and the number of staff trained each year for the years between 2018 and 2022, we would need to conduct a manual trawl within multiple force systems, all staff training records and every department across the whole force area. This however would be a huge undertaking and such a search would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that the cost of compliance with the whole of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12(1) of the FOI Act 2000. For West Midlands Police, the appropriate limit is set at £450, as prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, S.I. 3244.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here:
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