FAQ Details
Restricted Duties - 570/11
Dated: 07 Jun 2011
Date of request: 28/07/2011
Date of response: 18/08/2011
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
Thank you for your email dated 28th July 2011 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
How many police officers employed by the force are on restricted duties preventing them from having contact with the public. By 'contact' I mean face-to-face contact.
For each officer, where possible, please state why the restriction has been imposed and how long it has been in place for."
In response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the HR Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in part as follows.
1 & 2.
| Officer | Date Commenced |
| 1 | January 2006 |
| 2 | June 2009 |
| 3 | January 2005 |
| 4 | March 2009 |
| 5 | January 2007 |
| 6 | April 2010 |
| 7 | May 2009 |
| 8 | November 2010 |
| 9 | November 2008 |
| 10 | August 1997 |
| 11 | October 2003 |
| 12 | January 2006 |
| 13 | March 2009 |
Restrictions are accommodated to meet the needs of each individual officer and are supported in line with medical advice and guidance. We will not release the reason for the restriction and by withholding we rely on the following exemption:
Section 40 (2) - Personal Information
Section 40(2) is a class based absolute exemption and as such legislators have identified that there would be harm in disclosure and there is no requirement to evidence this or consider the public interest test. However, as Section 40(2) is engaged and in order to make the exemption absolute we need to evidence that a data protection principle would be breached by disclosure. In this case it would not be fair to process confidential medical information which, with the information I have released above, could lead to the identification of an individual, therefore the first principle of the Data Protection Act would be breached.
You should consider this to be a refusal under section 17 of the Act for your request.
The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.
How to complain
If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our complaints procedure which can be found at: http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/foicomprights.asp
If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.
Yours sincerely
Michael Cleugh
Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor
Direct Dial: 01661 868347