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:
- How much was spent on the digital forensics unit - for clarity purposes I am trying to find out the actual amount that was allocated to the digital forensics for the year 2019 what percentage of your whole budget does this equate to and did this unit stay on budget over spend or under spend ?
- A detailed breakdown as possible of the costs of training officers in the different fields of this unit , so to be more clearer i am trying to find out the total amount of money spent on training/re-training/further educating of officers in each different area of this unit. What was the percentage of the total budget used for each specific unit/field or department in the digital forensics unit that was solely used for the training, re-training or further educating of officers in each specific field.
In Response:
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with both the Finance and People Services Departments 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 as follows.
Please note that for both parts of your request regarding percentages – Northumbria Police do not hold “percentages” and are not obliged to create information in order to provide a response to a request. Therefore no information is held in relation to these parts of your request.
- This information is not held. Northumbria Police does not devolve budgets down to this departmental level.
- There are no different fields within this unit, therefore the information supplied refers to the whole of the Digital Forensic Unit. The People Services Department have identified external training courses for the Digital Forensic Unit in 2019 and the Finance Department can confirm the external cost of these was £ 41,035 (including accommodation costs).