Information

1. A copy of any documents used to evidence the decision to adopt this scheme including any minutes of
meetings, emails and any other relevant documents.
2. A table of of all complaints against police received by your office in chronological order under the new
system by date and type of complaint (ie what was complained of).
3. How many of those complaints were forwarded to PSD or the IOPC
4. The outcome of those complaints where a decision has been made by the PCCs offic

Answer

It is important to understand that once the Policing and Crime Act 2017 received Royal Assent, the
OPFCC started to undertake some initial scoping work in April 2017. A small working team was
established which entailed several all-day workshops a number of fact-finding trips as well as
numerous meetings with colleagues in the force. As part of this work, a number of presentations were
researched, compiled, and delivered to key individuals such as the PFCC, the Chief Constable and the
Police, Fire and Crime Panel.
Having reviewed the request, I support the decision of the Governance and Accountability Manager
when he explained to you the amount of work which would need to be undertaken in relation to your
request when he estimated that there could be over 8000 emails which will need to be examined and
if one minute was spent on each on, it would require at least 134 hours of work which equates to
£3,350.
In addition to the emails, there is also a large number of documents that were produced by the project
team which include briefings, presentations and working documents that helped to inform the
planning process. A search was conducted and at least 72 files were found which will all need to be
reviewed, assessed, and redacted where appropriate, again this would take a large amount of time
and a further search may be necessary to ensure no documents are missed.
Given the scale of the task to undertake the request, I uphold the decision to refuse the request under
Section 12 of the Act as it is clear that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the
appropriate limit.

However, I did ask for the decision to withhold the table of complaints received by the OPFCC to be
looked at again as I felt this was something we could provide within the ‘appropriate limit’. I have
attached a copy of a table to this email which shows that in total, between the dates specified within
the request (01/02/2020 – 23/07/2021), a total of 1238 complaints were recorded. 770 of these were
recorded as Schedule 3 complaints and 468 were recorded as Non-Schedule 3 complaints. Some of
the information requested in questions three and four is not included as PSD is not part of the OPFCC
and therefore we do not hold the information.
However, I hope that in the spirit of transparency and openness, you will find this information useful.
I have also attached a recent report that was presented to the Police, Fire and Crime Panel held on
the 24th March 2021 which provides information on the police complaints system and the work being
undertaken in Northamptonshire.

Emily Evans gave the presentation at the Police, Fire and Crime Panel Meeting. This is a public meeting that is recorded and streamed on YouTube. You can find a copy of the recording here. Please also find a table of complaints and correspondence below:

Copy of Non-Schedule 3 Update List

Panel update report on Complaints March 2021

Presentation 24 March 2021 Police Complaints System