Business Interests (203A/20)
Request
1- Can you provide the total number of police officers with approved business interests as of 6th of April 2020.
2 – Can the data be broken down into gender and rank please?
3 – Do the force provide any business support or guidance to those with business interests? if so, where can it be found?
Response
Questions 1 & 2:
Under section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information you have requested has been published on our website at the link below.
https://foi.west-midlands.police.uk/other-data-tables/
Please be advised that due to the way in which our data is recorded, we are only able to provide the number of business interests that have been approved for a specified time period without manually reviewing each individual case.
Question 3:
We can confirm that relevant information is held by West Midlands Police. However, whilst the majority of the information is attached to this email, I am not required to release all of the information requested. Please find attached a redacted copy of our Business Interests policy and note the redactions are on pages 1 & 13 and shown as white spaces.
REASONS FOR DECISION
The redacted information is exempt by virtue of the following exemption:
Section 40(2) – Personal information
This exemption and explanatory notes are shown here:
Section 40(2) is an absolute and class based exemption if to release the information exists would breach the third party’s data protection rights. In this case to release this personal information would not constitute fair processing of the data. As this exemption is class based I am not required to identify the harm in disclosure and in this instance I believe that the right to privacy outweighs any public interest in release.