27 January 2017 – 844.2016-17 – Appointment of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner
Request:
Following a confirmation hearing held on 6th October, 2016 the Police and Crime Scrutiny Panel for North Yorkshire conditionally approved the appointment of William Naylor as Deputy PCC.
http://www.nypartnerships.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=35086&p=0
The Panel required ‘that a Personal Development Plan (PDP) is drawn up between the DPCC and the Commissioner – to be shared with the Panel – to help address those areas of Mr Naylor’s skillset which require development’.
Please disclose by way of the Act:
- A copy of the PDP as shared by the Commissioner with the Panel
- Copies of email and letter correspondence between any, or all, of the Commissioner, Fraser Sampson, the Panel Secretariat, the Panel Chairman, the Panel’s legal adviser, Barry Khan that are produced by the search terms ‘Professional Development Plan’ or ‘PDP’.
- The name of the counsel engaged – and the cost of such engagement – to provide opinion as to the lawfulness of Mr Naylor’s appointment (see para 11 of the Panel’s report).
- The name of the firm of solicitors who drew up the advice upon which the opinion was based, and the cost of the preparation of that advice.
- The date upon which that opinion was provided to the Commissioner by counsel.
Response
Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information
To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and I can confirm that part of the information you have requested is held.
Decision
I have today decided to disclose the located information to you.
1) No Information is held to answer this question as a PDP has not yet been written.
2) Please find enclosed copies of email correspondence between the parties requested where the terms ‘Professional Development Plan’ or ‘PDP’ were stated within the subject field or the main body of the email.
E-mail correspondence – 844.2016-17 – Appointment of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner
Relevant redactions have been made to the email correspondence in order to protect third parties personal information (Section 40(2)). Please see the exemption explanation below.
Please also be aware that email’s from a North Yorkshire Police suffixed address can be retrieved once deleted and email attachments are also searched for the key terms. However, for email correspondence between the OPCC and any non-North Yorkshire Police email address, the scope of the search is restricted to the subject field or main body of text within an email. Emails that have been deleted from outlook are not captured by the search as the OPCC does not have the technological facility to conduct such searches.
3) No information is held to answer this question. Neither Counsel nor a firm of solicitors were engaged to provide opinion as to the lawfulness of the Deputy PCC’s appointment.
4, 5) No information held, please see answer to question 3.
Exemption Explanation
Section 17 of the Act requires North Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. Please refer to the exemption header for further detail.
Section 40 – Personal Information
I am exempting providing you with the redacted information pursuant to Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act (the Act). This is to ensure anonymity for those involved in each case. I have, however, provided other details relating to your request, whilst maintaining the elimination of any identification.
Where an individual can be identified by such data, releasing it would clearly breach the first data protection principle of being ‘fair’ to the data subject.
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 this instance 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 cases, outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
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 under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in relation to 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.
Complaint Rights
Your attention is drawn to the attached sheet which details your right of complaint.
If you have any queries concerning this request, please contact me quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Caroline Williams
Legal Officer (Civil Disclosure)
Joint Corporate Legal Services
Enc E-mail correspondence – 844.2016-17 – Appointment of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner