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. In respect of each of the years 2015-2021, please confirm what funding has been provided to Stonewall by:
Northumbria Police
2. Please specify whether the funding in 1 above has been in the form of:
a) direct grants for unlimited purposes;
b) direct grants for limited purposes (in that event, stating the purpose);
c) payment for goods or services (specifying the relevant goods and services).
3. Where the funding in 1 above has been by way of payment for goods or services, please specify:
a) what analysis has been conducted to ascertain whether these goods or services meet contractual and/or legal requirements;
b) what contractual or other recourse exists to reclaim in respect of goods or services that are defective, substandard or delivered in contravention of the law;
c) what steps are being taken to seek recourse for any such contractual or legal shortfalls.
4. In respect of the payments referred to in 1 above, please state:
a) What criteria were applied in deciding to make payments by way of direct grants;
b) What tendering process was conducted with regard to provision of goods or services;
c) What alternative suppliers of goods or services were considered.
In Response:
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Finance Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held in part by Northumbria Police.
I am able to disclose the located information to you with the following noted.
• For questions 1 and 2, the only funding we have identified is for goods and services (incl subscriptions), no grants are included in the table below.
1–2.
| Descriptions | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
| Diversity Champions Membership | 2,500.00 | 2,500.00 | 2,500.00 | 2,500.00 | 2,500.00 | 2,500.00 | 0 | 0 |
| Stonewall Workplace Conference 27.04.2018 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 678 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Stonewall Open Allies Programme Manchester 06.06.2019 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 325 | 0 | 0 |
| Stonewall Open Leadership Programme | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3,190.00 | 0 | 0 |
3. The £2.5k yearly expenditure costs relate to Stonewall membership. As the terms and conditions associated to the membership are accessible by other means I have not provided you with a copy of the information and will rely on Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. You should therefore consider this a refusal for this part of your request.
I have provided an explanation to this exemption below.
Section 21 (1) - Information accessible by other means
Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant is exempt information.
The information you have requested is freely available as it is published on the Stonewall website and social media platforms, the link to the relevant page is provided below.
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/terms-and-conditions-membership-diversity-champion
The membership provides access to best practice guides and resources, a dedicated account manager for questions, queries and advice, assistance with our Workplace Equality Index (WEI) submission, priority discounted access to learning opportunities and events and Stonewall Diversity Champion branding (Stonewall logo as seen of our careers webpages) to show your commitment to LGBT inclusion. Please note - Northumbria Police did not renew Stonewall membership in 2020 and 2021 (we have also not participated in the WEI each of those years either). Services received were reviewed yearly against terms and conditions and the membership services outlined above.
4. a) N/A.
b) No formal tendering process was carried out by Procurement as the costs incurred do not fall within the requirement of a tendering process as they consist of membership and specific training courses.
c) N/A.
