NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED
18th August 2014
Your Ref:
Our Ref: IM-FOI-2014-1276 request-217266- [email protected]
Sir Stephen House QPM Chief Constable
FOI Central Processing Unit 173 Pitt Street Glasgow G2 4JS
Dear Mr Laidlaw
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 2002 SUBJECT: OFFICERS AND STAFF WITH CONVICTIONS REQUEST FOR REVIEW
I refer to your email dated 22nd June regarding the above. I apologise for the delay in responding and note you have a requested a review of the way Police Scotland has handled your request as a result. Unfortunately, some of the information took longer than hoped to trace and it is this that caused the delay. I therefore wholly accept that we have failed to meet our obligations to respond within 20 working days as laid down in the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. That said I can now offer a response to your request.
QUESTION
I would like to ask about police employees with criminal records. I have a list of questions below
1a. How many serving police officers have a criminal record 1.b. what are the ranks of these officers 1.c. what crimes are they convicted off
scotland.police.uk @PoliceScotland PoliceScotland
NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED I use the term "police officer" I am not sure if all police ranks use the term officer so by this I mean these ranks.
Chief Constable Deputy Chief Constable Assistant Chief Constable Chief Superintendent Superintendent Chief Inspector Inspector Sergeant Constable
2a. How many police support staff have criminal records 2.b. what are the job titles of the people convicted. 3c. What crimes are they convicted
I use the term police support staff by this I mean any staff employed by police Scotland that is not a police officer.
3. can you please also provide me with a list of police stations with the number of police officers with convictions and support staff with conviction. example Castlemilk Police Office (2 police officers with convictions) (1 support staff with convictions)
Pollok Police Office (1 police officers with convictions) (0 support staff with conviction)
4.a. how many police officers have been sacked because of criminal action since police scotland formed. 4.b. how many police support staff have been sacked because of criminal action since police scotland formed.
5. Do police officers with criminal records have access to vulnerable members of the public?
6a. police scotland sometimes name criminals to the public if its in the public interest, how many times has police scotland made public the names of police officers who have committed a crime? 6b. how many times has police scotland named a police officer who has commited a crime but kept the officer in employment
6c. how many times has police scotland made public the names of police support staff who have committed a crime?
6d.how many times has police scotland named police support staff who have commited a crime but kept them in employment
RESPONSE
I am afraid that I am unable to answer most of the questions you have posed, as the level of detail required is not routinely collated.
I can confirm that 1,655 employees (police officers and police staff) have convictions on the Scottish Criminal History System (CHS) as at 7th August 2014. The CHS is a live system that is constantly being updated as and when new pending cases are created, cases are concluded and convictions weed from the system. Therefore this number is a ‘snapshot’ at this date. This number was provided by our Criminal Justice Division which is required to send a weekly list of officers and staff with convictions to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. This list does not provide details of their role within Police Scotland, the nature of the convictions nor the particular offices they currently work from. As a result, the only way to obtain this level of detail would be to check every relevant CHS record and cross-reference the name with personnel records. A further exercise would then have to be undertaken to ascertain where these individuals are posted. Due to the number of individuals involved, completing this task would take a significant length of time to complete to a reliable standard and section 12 of the Act, excessive cost of compliance would result.
Five officers have been dismissed or required to resign since the formation of Police Scotland due to being found guilty of a criminal offence (your question 4a). This information was obtained from our Professional Standards Department through the misconduct process.
However, HR, which manages Police Staff employment does not retain conviction information centrally and therefore the only way to ascertain whether this was the reason for a person leaving the organisation would be to check through leavers’ personnel files. Again, volume of work would result in section 12, excessive cost of compliance being applied.
I can advise in regards to your question 5, that this would be wholly dependent on the nature of the conviction. It is highly unlikely that if an officer was convicted of a serious offence, or one that was deemed incompatible with their employment that they would be permitted to remain working within the police service. If, however (and as an example) they received a criminal record due to a speeding offence, this may not necessary ‘bar’ them from having contact with vulnerable members of the public. Senior officers would make this sort of decision on a case-by-case basis and I cannot therefore offer a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response.
Finally, in regards to officers and staff who have been publicly named by Police Scotland following the commission of crime, again no central record is kept in this regard. Any such disclosure would be made on a case-by-case basis, depending on the circumstances and whether it was in the public interest to disclose this information. Often officers and staff will be named in press during the course of a criminal trial and therefore such information can be found through open source research, for example on the Internet.
I trust that the information available is of assistance and should you require any further assistance concerning this matter please contact me on 0131 311 3901 quoting the reference number given.
Once informed of the Review decision, if you are still not satisfied, then you are entitled to apply to the Scottish Information Commissioner within six months for a decision. Contact details are; ‘Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner, Kinburn Castle, Doubledykes Road, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9DS’, telephone 01334 464610.
Yours sincerely
Stephanie Laing Information Management Freedom of Information