This blog is mainly about the governance and future of policing and crime services. (Police & Crime Commissioners feature quite a lot.) But there are also posts about the wider justice system. And because I am town councillor and political activist, local & national issues are covered a little, as well.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Ethical practice

I am in the middle of analysing my Freedom of Information based research into police & ethical practice that I initiated back before December (there was an update here). The deadline for responding was 8 January. I will be publishing the results soon, but in the meantime, here is a list of the forces that have NOT responded - even now, more than two months after the FoI deadline:
  • Cumbria* 
  • Dorset
  • Hampshire*****
  • Metropolitan****
  • North Yorkshire**
  • West Mercia***
  • West Midlands
  • City of London
So if you have any levers to pull - that would be peachy! Thanks.

UPDATE 170314|1659: To be fair to Cumbria, I used the standard email nomenclature (foi@etc) and waited for a bounce back if it was not correct. None came so I assumed the address was correct. However it now seems as if the correct email address is freedomofinformation@Cumbria...etc. (Thanks to the PCC who alerted me to the fact that no email had been received.) So my sincere apologies for unfairly besmirching their lack of response... although I would say they might need to look into their email systems! But maybe I missed the bounce back...

UPDATE 190314|1911: Just received this 'twitlonger' message from @CumbriaPolice "@CllrJonSHarvey Hello Jon, I have contacted our FOI department for you. Is the request you sent under your name? As they do not have any record of any FOI requests from you. FOIEmail@cumbria.police.uk is the correct e-mail address to send any requests through. If this was sent through under a different name please contact the department through this address." I have sent them another email to this new address as well.

** UPDATE 180314|0827: Just received information from North Yorkshire. Thanks.

*** UPDATE 180314|1209: Just received a tweet from @WMerciaPolice informing me that they had replied in December. Not sure what happened but I did not pick up this email in my usual inbox. (However now found in my gmail account - where all emails are bounced too as well). It seems that their response was that since they could answer Q8, they asked me if I would like to "refine and resubmit your request for reduced information". I have now done this via twitter (which is a legitimate FoI tool. My sincere apologies for overlooking their original response. However, I do think they are being a little picky: other forces have happily replied to my questions and where they could not, they have merely not answered that one, and go on to the next. Which is fine with me and saves a lot of 'toing and froing'. 

**** UPDATE 180314|1441Just received information from the Met. Thanks.

***** UPDATE 190314|1913: Received a message from @HantsPCC saying "I've looked into this and I'm advised that according to their records, the force FOI office responded to you on January 6". It would seem that this email went into my spam folder (for some reason) in not dissimilar circumstances to West Mercia's above. On searching my Gmail account, I have managed to find it. Curiously it is also similar to the West Mercia one which declined to answer on the basis that Q8 was beyond the financial limit. I will reply to them, asking them that Qs 1 - 7 would still be very useful... But, as above, my sincere apologies for overlooking their original response. 

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