PSD Complaints (749A/23)
Request
This FOIR is in relation to “complaints” made to West midlands Professional standards department, (who have stated that they are experiencing a back log of complaints from the IOPC,) that have been returned to the PSD from the IOPC.
How many complaints from the IOPC, have been returned to PSD, in the following years,
2021, 2022 and 2023.
Clarification received 07/05/2023:
I would like to know how many “complaints” that were made to the PSD in 2021, 2022, 2023 have been upheld by the IOPC, and granted the right to review, and returned to the PSD?
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. This is because prior to 2022, information pertaining to IOPC complaints returned to our Professional Standards Department (PSD) is not centrally held in a retrievable format; this information would have been stored in various formats and on different systems. During the requested time period our PSD introduced new recording processes in respect of this information, however these changes weren’t implemented until 2022. This means that to identify information prior to 2022, we would need to conduct manual searches of both electronic and paper records. However, to conduct these manual searches would exceed the appropriate limit (FOIA, s.12).
This means that the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of the request and if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit then S12 of the Act applies to the whole request.
Further information on section 12 of FOI is available here:
However, in accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide the information requested for the years 2022 and 2023 as this was retrieved during our initial research. Please find this information below.
2022 = 30
2023 = 45
N.B. These figures reflect the year that the case was returned to our PSD (e.g. a complaint could have been made to the IOPC in 2021 but not returned to our PSD until 2022).
This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests.
Attachments
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