IOPC Referrals - 106/23

Date Responded 07 March 2023

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

For 2022 calendar year:

I am requesting figures for the number of referrals made by Northumbria Police to the IOPC.

I am also requesting a breakdown of the reasons for the referral and the outcome of the referral.

In Response:

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Professional Standards Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you with the IOPC Decision key to be noted as follows.

The IOPC Decisions key:

Force To Deal - The IOPC has decided that a matter does not need to be investigated, it may be referred to the force to handle the matter in whatever reasonable and proportionate manner it determines.
Local Investigation – Investigation conducted by the force
Directed Investigation – Investigated conducted by the force but IOPC direct how the force should investigate it.
Independent Investigation – Investigation conducted by the IOPC.

IOPC Referral Category	IOPC Decision	Number
Abuse of authority for sexual gain	Local Investigation	2
Criminal offence or discriminatory behaviour likely to lead to discipline	Force to deal	1
	Local Investigation	2
Death or serious injury	organisational learning	1
	Force to deal	93
	Independent investigation	9
	Invalid	1
	Local Investigation	59
	Local investigation	1
	Not Valid for Referral	1
Other	Local Investigation	4
Serious assault	Force to deal	1
	Independent investigation	1
	Local Investigation	10
Serious corruption	Local Investigation	3
Serious sexual offence	Local Investigation	6
Voluntary	Independent investigation	1
Voluntary	Local Investigation	1
Relevant offence	Force to deal	1
Relevant offence	Local Investigation	2
Grand Total		200

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.