February 19, 2025
Request Number: FOI/13641
Category: Discipline, Complaints and Legal - Discipline
Subject: Misconduct of officers
Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) We can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does hold the information you have requested however it is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and this will be further explained below. PSNI have followed the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance ‘Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit’ in relation to this request, which also provides further detail on the application of Section 12 (1) of the FOIA. This guidance is available on the ICO website at the following link:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf
Request 1
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding police officer misconduct.
Please could you provide the following information:
1. The total number of police officers accused of misconduct
Clarification requested:
1. Should this include matters dealt with by both PONI and PSNI? Please note data Including PONI reports is likely to bring this request to over cost.
2. By ‘accused of misconduct" do they mean any report of alleged misconduct which has been submitted to PSNI, regardless of whether any investigation has ever been commenced.
Clarification received:
1. Can this be solely for PSNI?
2. Yes please alleged misconduct
Request 2
A breakdown of the number that proceeded to a misconduct hearing.
Request 3
A breakdown of the outcomes in each case that proceeded to a misconduct hearing.
Request 4
A breakdown of the type of misconduct alleged (e.g. Dishonesty, abuse of authority, discrimination)
Request 5
Please provide copies of summaries of the Modus Operandi (MO) sections for incident reports relating to misconduct cases that went to a hearing ensuring that all personal data is redacted to align with privacy regulation.
Request 6
The outcome of the above hearings.
Request 7
How many officers resigned before the proceedings were completed
I would like to request this information for the last 4 years. If this time frame is too broad I am happy to refine the scope to 3 years.
Answer
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Police Service of Northern Ireland, when refusing to provide such information (because the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit) to provide you the applicant with a notice which states that fact.
It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 12 of FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. The estimate must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case. The ‘appropriate limit’ is currently £600 for central government and £450 for all other public authorities including PSNI. The relevant Regulations which define the appropriate limit for section 12 purposes are The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulation 2004 SI 2004 No 3244. These are known as the ‘Fees Regulations’ for brevity.
Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations states that a public authority can take into account the costs it reasonably expects to incur in carrying out the following permitted activities in complying with the request:
(i) determining whether the information is held;
(ii) locating the information, or a document containing it;
(iii) retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
(iv) extracting the information from a document containing it.
Under those regulations PSNI can calculate the time spent on each of these permitted activities at £25 per hour (thus if the activity(s) takes more than 18 hours PSNI will be in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’).
When a public authority is estimating whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if the conditions laid out in Regulation 5 of the Fees Regulations can be satisfied. Those conditions require the requests to be:
- made by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
- made for the same or similar information; and
- received by the public authority within any period of 60 consecutive working days.
Regulation 5(2) of the Fees Regulations requires that the requests which are to be aggregated relate “to any extent” to the same or similar information. This is quite a wide test but public authorities should still ensure that the requests meet this requirement.
Enquiries made in relation to your request has identified that retrieval of information to respond to your request would exceed the FOI legislative cost of 18 hours as set by the Secretary of State.
An evaluation has been conducted to determine the time it would take to retrieve the requested information and it is estimated that in excess of 1438 records would need to be manually reviewed. During the past 4 years there are a total of 1438 entries which relate to officers having been reported to Professional Standards Department for potential misconduct. To extract further information on this would require an examination of each individual record. At a very conservative estimate of 2 minutes per file, this would require approximately 48 hours of work thus putting this request in excess of the 18 hour cost limit.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter should be considered as a Refusal Notice, and the request has therefore been closed.
Advice and assistance
You may wish to submit a refined request in order that the cost of complying with your request may be facilitated within the ‘appropriate limit’. In compliance with Section 16 of the Act, we have considered how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit.
- Due to the existence of a separate database and smaller numbers of cases, it may be possible to answer questions 2, 3, 6 and 7 within cost.
Submission of a refined request would be treated as a new request, and considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, including consideration of relevant Part II exemptions.