NFRS 2022 102 - Bullying and harassment

You asked for:

I am writing to request information to which I am entitled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

For EACH of the previous three fiscal years (i.e. 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22) and 2022/23 - up to December 31 - please can you tell me:

1. The TOTAL number of complaints brought by fire and rescue service employees, against other fire and rescue employees, under the relevant Complaints Procedure; ideally, I wish the data to be broken down by type of grievance/s (e.g. bullying and discrimination, sexual harassment and assault, etc.).
2. The TOTAL number of complaints that were upheld.
3. The TOTAL number of upheld complaints that resulted in disciplinary action.

If this request is too wide or unclear, I would be grateful if you could contact me as I understand that under the Act, you are required to advise and assist requesters. If any of this information is already in the public domain, please can you direct me to it, with page references and URLs if necessary.

I understand that you are required to respond to my request within the 20 working days after you receive this letter. I would be grateful if you could confirm in writing that you have received this request.

Our Response:

I am writing to request information to which I am entitled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

For EACH of the previous three fiscal years (i.e. 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22) and 2022/23 - up to December 31 - please can you tell me:

1. The TOTAL number of complaints brought by fire and rescue service employees, against other fire and rescue employees, under the relevant Complaints Procedure; ideally, I wish the data to be broken down by type of grievance/s (e.g. bullying and discrimination, sexual harassment and assault, etc.). Answer: - The data has been collected from 01/04/2019

   Complaint type	2019 - 2023
   Harassment and bullying	4
   Grievances against managers	3
   Inappropriate comment	2
   Racism allegation	1
   Total	10

   Please be advised that to prevent any identification of individuals, we've not provided a breakdown of the year they were reported by virtue of section 40(2) Personal information of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

2. The TOTAL number of complaints that were upheld.

   Answer: -

   Complaint outcome	2019 - 2023
   Upheld	2

   Note: Only cases that were forwarded for consideration for formal action under the disciplinary procedure are included under Question 2.

3. The TOTAL number of upheld complaints that resulted in disciplinary action.

   Answer: - Refer to question 2.

Section 40: - Personal Information

(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if—

1. it constitutes personal data which does not fall within subsection (1), and
2. the first, second or third condition below is satisfied.

(3A) The first condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act—

1. would contravene any of the data protection principles, or
2. would do so if the exemptions in section 24(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018 (manual unstructured data held by public authorities) were disregarded.

(3B) The second condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene Article 21 of the GDPR (general processing: right to object to processing).

(4A) The third condition is that—

1. on a request under Article 15(1) of the GDPR (general processing: right of access by the data subject) for access to personal data, the information would be withheld in reliance on provision made by or under section 15, 16 or 26 of, or Schedule 2, 3 or 4 to, the Data Protection Act 2018, or
2. (b) on a request under section 45(1)(b) of that Act (law enforcement processing: right of access by the data subject), the information would be withheld in reliance on subsection (4) of that section.

Section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is categorised as an Absolute and Class Based type exemption and therefore does not require a public interest test to be carried nor must Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service articulate the harm in disclosure.