Misconduct in Promotion Process

Request Number: FOI/16358

Category: Discipline and Misconduct - Discipline

Subject: Misconduct in Promotion Process

Request and Answer:
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:
ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi/guide-to-managing-an-foi-request/charging-a-fee-and-cost-limits/ 

Request

Misconduct relating to cheating in examinations or assessment processes (all ranks) For the period 1 January 2010 to the present, please provide:

Request 1
The number of PSNI officers who have been: Investigated for suspected cheating, collusion, or other improper conduct during any PSNI examination, assessment, or selection process. 

Request 2
Found to have engaged in such conduct following investigation.

Request 3
Subject to disciplinary outcomes, specifying how many received:
a) Management advice
b) Written warning
c) Final written warning
d) Reduction in rank
e) Dismissal
f) Any other sanction (please specify the type)

Request 4
If held, please provide a breakdown by rank (e.g., Constable, Sergeant, Inspector, etc.) for all of the above categories. 

Most recent Sergeant/Inspector promotion process (2024/2025)

Request 5
How many officers were reported, referred, or flagged for suspected misconduct, irregularity, cheating, or breach of assessment conditions during the most recent Sergeant/Inspector promotion process?

Request 6
Of those officers: How many were subject to formal investigation?

Request 7
How many cases were substantiated?

Request 8
How many have been referred to a misconduct meeting or misconduct hearing under the PSNI Conduct Regulations?

Request 9
How many investigations remain ongoing?

Request 10
If recorded, please provide the types of alleged wrongdoing, such as:
a) Sharing or distributing exam/assessment materials
b) Accessing prohibited information
c) Use of electronic devices
d) Collusion
e) Breach of confidentiality
f) Any other category used internally 

Request 11
Please provide: Any policies, guidance, or procedural documents currently in force relating to the management, investigation, or handling of allegations of cheating or misconduct in examination or promotion processes (e.g., Promotion Framework, Examination Policy, Standards of Professional Behaviour guidance).

Request 12
The average or median time between referral and final hearing for cases involving alleged exam- or promotion-process misconduct over the last five years.

Request 13
Confirmation of whether PSNI uses a standard investigative procedure for such cases or whether they are handled on an ad hoc / case-specific basis

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.
Whilst the information you seek is held electronically by the PSNI, it is not held in a format that would allow its retrieval without manual intervention. To extract the data you have sought in your request would require a manual trawl of PSNI’s records – hence putting the request grossly over the 18 hour cost limit set out under the FOIA.

This matter will be over cost.

Due to the extensive date range in the request (15 years), and the level of detail requested, this request is over cost. It would not be possible to easily identify or extract the requested information, and so a manual examination of every file would be necessary to identify the relevant occurrences, and then obtain the requested information. Approx 43500 reports have been made, at an estimate of 2 minutes per occurrence, this would require approx 150 hours work.

Advice and assistance
In compliance with Section 16 of the Act, we have considered how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit.  We may be able to provide a response in regards to the information sought for 2025 only, within the 18 hour cost limit.  We may also be able to provide a response in relation to requests 11 and 13.