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 officers received any kind of disciplined sanction in the 2016/17 year as a result of a complaint of (i) racism, or (ii) sexism and what was the result of that disciplinary action?
2. In relation to the incidents in Q.1 please state any words or phrases that were used which were deemed to have been (i) racist or (ii) sexist.
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.
Please note that the information has been taken from a ‘live’ database and may be subject to the addition and deletion of complaints, complainants and subjects after the initial extraction of data used for the purposes of this request.
Data has been checked for allegations recorded between 01/04/2016 to 31/03/2017 for complaint and conduct matters relating to racist complaints or behaviour by Police Officers.
All allegations recorded under the allegation type “discriminatory behaviour” were checked as well as any allegation summaries that included the words ‘racism’, ‘racist’, ‘racial’, ‘race’ , ‘ethnic’, ‘sexist’, ‘sexism’, ‘gender’ and ‘discrimination’. Each case file was then read to determine the words or phrases used that were deemed to have been racist or sexist.
With the above in mind, I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.
1.
i) zero
ii) One officer received management action in the form of words of advice and furthermore was removed as the line management of an officer who reported sexist behaviour.
2.
i) N/A
ii) No specific words or phrases – joke made whilst in company of colleagues which was deemed to be sexist.
