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Officers Contracting COVID-19 (90A/21)

Request

This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act. My request relates to the number of police officers that have contracted COVID-19 since March 2020. Specifically, I would like the following information:

  1. How many police officers have contracted COVID-19 since March 1st 2020? I would like this information broken down by month from March 1st 2020, up to and including today’s date. If data has not been included up to and including today’s date, please provide me with data starting from March 1st 2020, to the latest date where data is available.
  2. Of the number of police officers that have contracted COVID-19 since March 1st 2020, how many of them had to take a period of sick leave that lasted over 14 days as a result?

Response

I can confirm that relevant information is held by West Midlands Police. However, while the majority of this information is attached (90A_21_attachment.pdf) we are withholding information for question 1 after 30 November 2020, since it is exempt by virtue of Section 31(1)(a)(Law enforcement).

This exemption and explanatory notes are shown here:

https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/information-management/freedom-of-information/#freedom-of-information-exemptions

In line with the above, I am required to complete a Prejudice Test/Public Interest Test (PIT) on disclosure. Please find this PIT attached (90A_21_PIT.pdf).

With regard to the data supplied, every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.

Attachments

90A_21_attachment

90A_21_PIT