Complaints Received from Victims of Crime - 2020 and 2021

Keywords

Complaints, Received, Victims, Type, Crime.

Publication Number

PUB 1458

FOI Reference Number

16646

Request Title

Complaints Received from Victims of Crime - 2020 and 2021

Date Range

2020 to 2022

Information Requested

How many complaints have you received from victims of crime in the past 12 months?

How many complaints did you receive in the years of 2020, and 2021?

Please provide details as to the nature of the complaint and the type of crime.

Disclosure with Exemptions

Full Refusal with Section 12 Exemption

Information Correct as at

08 August 2022

Date of Disclosure

08 August 2022

Related Documents/Links

N/A

FOI 16646 Response

FOI Duty

First Duty – Essex Police holds some information relating to your request.

Second Duty – See below. 

Fact – Centurion is a database used by force Professional Standards Departments.

Cases are individually identified, investigated and managed within the Centurion system by Professional Standards overseen by the Appropriate Authority, however the data in the above request is not held in a format that allows for all information to be accurately extracted and verified.

Refusal – Section 17(5) Exemption – Section 12(1)

Reasoning – 

Although cases will be individually identified and managed within the Centurion system as cases are investigated,  to extract data and further accurately filter out those relevant to this request is complex. During 2020, 1,648 complaints were received, and during the past 12 months, (1/1/2021 to 31/12/2021) 1,937 complaints were recorded. This is an overall number of complaints (some complaints may have more than 1 strand of complaint allocated), Essex Police are unable to the extract if one or multiple complaint strands will involve a victim of crime without manually looking into each allegation or complaint.

Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information. This request would entail manually extracting the requested data and reviewing each record one by one. This process would exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and would also qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.

Duty to assist – When refusing a request on cost (Section 12(1)) and in an effort to assist under Section 16, please note the following which will assist in the understanding of recording in respect of Professional Standard data and future refinement of requests;

Statistics follow the published guidelines based on the set 11 Complaint Categories A-L with 45 sub-categories and Misconduct Categories. You may wish to view the links provided below before resubmission which explain more regarding complaint categories and strands

Outside of the act and in effort to assist we can provide the following -  

Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) holds the Police Force to account and has the legal power to hold the Chief Constable to account. 

The conduct of a Police Officer or a Police Staff member is an important issue and Essex Police regularly receive FOI requests regarding misconduct and complaints both the PFCC and the Police Service need to be accountable and transparent regarding this issue. 

Data is regularly published via quarterly reports, please click on the following link:  Conduct & Professional Standards - Essex Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner (pfcc.police.uk)

Essex Police have an expectation that management and staff at all levels will lead by example, consistently displaying behaviour in line with the Code of Ethics | College of Policing and ensuring adherence to legal requirements and to all Essex Police policies, procedures and practices.  Through Prevention, Intelligence, Enforcement, Communication and Engagement, Essex Police is committed to making sure the opportunity for corruption is reduced to the lowest possible risk.  Where corruption is identified the organisation will deal with it proportionately and effectively.   

A member of the public can lodge a complaint regarding conduct with the Professional Standards Department (PSD), please see below link: https://www.essex.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/c/complaints/ 

Internal conduct cases (from staff v staff) are managed by Human Resources (HR) who will, if necessary refer to PSD for formal assessment.  If formal misconduct is identified, HR will manage the investigation, however, PSD will decide on whether there is a case to answer through a disciplinary process.  Dependant on the circumstances, it can be in various forms, from an informal warning to a formal disciplinary hearing.  Formal misconduct cases are recorded by PSD on the conduct database.

If a complaint is about the conduct of a Police Officer or member of Police Staff made from a member of the public, the complaint will be managed by PSD and dealt with by either the policing area or department it relates to, through a local resolution or a local investigation.  This can subsequently be appealed to either the Chief Constable or the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) depending on the specifics of the individual case if the complainant remains dissatisfied.  If local resolution is not appropriate and the complaint considered serious, the complaint will be investigated by PSD.  Essex Police can also refer matters to the IOPC who may decide to independently investigate certain cases. 

Additional mandatory referrals and requested reviews can also be viewed via the IOPC web site.  The following link provides useful data and explains further regarding coding and strands of misconduct and complaints: 

Investigations | Independent Office for Police Conduct

Search | Independent Office for Police Conduct