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NFRS 2022 87 - formal grievances by female staff

You asked for:

I am requesting the below under the freedom of information act.

For each of the calendar years 2019, 2020, 2021, and this year to date, please can you provide figures on the following:

  1. How many formal grievances have been raised with the service by female members of staff and female firefighters regarding complaints of harassment, inappropriate behaviour and assault?
  2. How many claims have been submitted to employment tribunal regarding the above;
  3. How many of those claims have settled prior to a full/remedy hearing;
  4. What was the settlement figure in each claim?
  5. How many of those settlements involved the signing of a non-disclosure agreement?
  6. How many grievance/discipline cases have been brought by the service in relation to inappropriate behaviour/conduct* by an employee (*sex discrimination, harassment)?

Our Response:

For each of the calendar years 2019, 2020, 2021, and this year to date, please can you provide figures on the following:

  1. How many formal grievances have been raised with the service by female members of staff and female firefighters regarding complaints of harassment, inappropriate behaviour and assault?

    Answer: - 2

    Please be advised that it has been determined that to break the data down by the requested calendar years would potentially identify individuals due to the low numbers and is therefore exempt by virtue of section 40(2) Personal Information.

  2. How many claims have been submitted to employment tribunal regarding the above;

    Answer: - 2

    Please be advised that it has been determined that to break the data down by the requested calendar years would potentially identify individuals due to the low numbers and is therefore exempt by virtue of section 40(2) Personal Information.

  3. How many of those claims have settled prior to a full/remedy hearing;

    Answer: - 2

    Please be advised that it has been determined that to break the data down by the requested calendar years would potentially identify individuals due to the low numbers and is therefore exempt by virtue of section 40(2) Personal Information.

  4. What was the settlement figure in each claim?

    Answer: - Exempt by virtue of section 40(2) Personal Information

  5. How many of those settlements involved the signing of a non-disclosure agreement?

    Answer: - 2

    Please be advised that it has been determined that to break the data down by the requested calendar years would potentially identify individuals due to the low numbers and is therefore exempt by virtue of section 40(2) Personal Information.

  6. How many grievance/discipline cases have been brought by the service in relation to inappropriate behaviour/conduct* by an employee (*sex discrimination, harassment)?

    Answer: - 1

    Please be advised that it has been determined that to break the data down by the requested calendar years would potentially identify individuals due to the low numbers and is therefore exempt by virtue of section 40(2) Personal Information.

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. 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 is an Absolute and Class based exemption and therefore does not require a public interest test to be carried out nor does the organisation need to evidence the harm in disclosure.