Officer & Staff Disciplines - 202/22

Date Responded 02 March 2022

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:

1. How many (a) police officers and (b) police staff were disciplined in the last two calendar years (2020 and 2021) for improper/illegal or inappropriate use of the PNC/Force intelligence data systems?

2. How many related to (i) vehicle data, (ii) personal data or (iii) other data breaches?

3. Please provide for each incident a brief description, which should include

i. the month of the incident

ii. the nature of the offence or breach of force policy – a one sentence summary

iii. if the person was an officer or a member or civilian staff

iv. how the matter was resolved, i.e. written warning, sacked etc.

In Response:

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 as follows.

1-3.

Date	Rank	Allegation Summary	Type	Outcome
May-20	Police Officer	Allegation that the officer accessed the force system for a non-policing purpose	Personal data	Management advice
Aug-20	Police Officer	accessed Force system for non-policing purpose	Personal data	Written warning
Sep-20	Police Officer	Allegations of accessing information on multiple occasions without a policing purpose	Personal data	Written Warning
Oct-20	Civilian Staff	misusing force systems to gain personal information about neighbour	Personal data	Dismissed without notice
Nov-20	Police Officer	Accessing force systems and disclosed information to partner	Personal data	Written warning
Nov-20	Police Officer	Accessing force systems without policing purpose.	Personal data	Written warning
Dec-20	Civilian Staff	Accessing police systems on multiple occasions without a policing purpose.	Personal data	Written warning
Feb-21	Police Officer	Accessed force systems without policing purpose	Personal data	Written Warning
Jun-21	Police Officer	Accessing police systems on multiple occasions without a policing purpose	Personal data	Final Written Warning

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.