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Home - 18 February 2016 – 964.2015-16 – Freedom of information requests – Appointments of the PCC from 1 July to 31 December 2015

18 February 2016 – 964.2015-16 – Freedom of information requests – Appointments of the PCC from 1 July to 31 December 2015

Request

I’d like to request the appointment diary of the Police & Crime Commissioner from 1st July 2015 to 31st December 2015.

Please provide the time and date of each appointment or event, and a summary of what it was about. The estimated duration of the appointment would be appreciated if it is easily accessible.

(‘Meeting with Chief Constable’ would, for instance, be fine as a summary – I’m not looking for a detailed agenda for each appointment.)

I’m not interested in appointments where someone deputised for the PCC. Please also indicate dates when the PCC was on leave.

Where entries need to be redacted, please still provide the time and date of the appointment, as part of my research is to establish how many meetings the PCC has had.

Response

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were carried out within the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC).

I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by the OPCC.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you.

Appointments of the PCC from 1 July to 31 December 2015

For information, the Corporate Performance and Scrutiny Board, and Executive Board are monthly meetings, and the Executive Group meeting is held every 3 weeks out of 4.

I have redacted any third party names pursuant to Section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Personal Information. Please see explanation of exemption overleaf.

I can however confirm that where internal meeting attendee names have been redacted, they were held with the Customer Relationship Manager, and Head of Commissioning and Partnerships.

For external meetings where names have been redacted, partnership meetings were held with the Chair of North Yorkshire Fire Authority and the Chief Constable of Dyfed Powys. NRCN meetings were held with the same Chief Constable.

Section 40 – Personal Information

The specific information you have requested is exempt by virtue of Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) because I consider it to be personal information to the attendees concerned.

I am required by law to identify the relevant parts (the exemptions) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) that I have considered when reaching this decision, and I must also explain why these exemptions apply.

Section 40(2)(b) is an absolute class based exemption, which does not require a public interest test, but requires the balancing of the legitimate interests of the public against the interests of the individual under the first Data Protection Principle (that of ‘fairness’).

This exemption applies because the right given under the Act to request official information held by public authorities does not apply to the personal data of third parties where disclosure of that information would not be fair to the individual, and where there is no legitimate public interest in disclosure.

In all the circumstances of the case it has been determined that the duty to the individual under the Data Protection Act 1998, and the public interest in maintaining the exemption from disclosure of personal information held by the force in such instances, outweighs the public interest in disclosure. In this instance, personal information can only be disclosed to the individual concerned.

Releasing personal details to a person other than the data subject would not only breach the data subject’s Data Protection rights it may also breach the obligations placed on an authority under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice in response to this part of your request.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.