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Ask For: / Freedom of Information
Our Ref: / 002486/09
Your Ref:
Date: / 15 December 2018
Dear MROLD
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST - REFERENCE NO: 002486/09
I write in connection with your request for informationwhich was received byDerbyshireConstabulary on 10/12/2009.I note you seek access to the following information:
I am writing to request an internal review of Derbyshire
Constabulary's handling of my FOI request 'Unlawful cessation of
payment of CRTP to officers'.
In response to my first question, you state:
"Home Office Circular 18 / 2008 had ratifications in May / June but
the matters relating to continuing CRTP payments on Acting up was
not one of them - hence the original Circular which identified that
the payments should stop is still in existence and has not yet been
amended. We still stop the payments accordingly until the
ratification of making the payments is received."
I infer from this response that you *do not* comply with the
guidance given in HO Circular 18/2008. Accordingly, you should then
have responded to my second question, which requests the lawful (in
its strict legal sense, i.e. "sanctioned by law") basis for ceasing
these payments. Home Office Circulars are for guidance only, as
they have no statutory basis, and are neither lawful authority for
making payments, nor for ceasing them (although, out of interest, I
will be making a separate FoI request for details of the HOC to
which you refer). I set out in my request the precise detail and
extent of the relevant legislation for the lawful grant and
cessation of CRTP of which I am aware, and have requested the same
from you in response.
A Home Office Circular therefore can never be a lawful reason for
ceasing payments that have previously been lawfully granted to the
recipient under the Police Regulations 2003, and therefore it is
*not* the information requested. The reference to Home Office
Circulars is specious and irrelevant to the request for information
that has been made.
I will be satisfied if you acknowledge that Derbyshire Constabulary
is and has been acting unlawfully in ceasing these payments, else I
shall have to make an appeal to the ICO in respect of your refusal
to provide the requested information. You might be interested to
learn that, within my present knowledge, you are one of only three
police forces in England and Wales that continue to act unlawfully
in ceasing CRTP in these circumstances.
Thank you for your request for an internal review as this has caused us to re-visit both our response to you (in relation to questions 1 and 3) and our interpretation of the PNB circular and subsequent Home Officer Circular 18 / 2008.
There has been some misunderstanding of what your original request was asking for, which in turn caused confusion in terms of the information we were provided with in order to respond. I hope to rectify the response through the following corrected narrative.
Our staff on receiving PNB circular 04 / 2008 and the enacting Home Office Circular 18 / 2008 read the relevant paragraphs (14 and 15) together i.e. as a continuation
Paragraph 14 – Officers who are acting up should receive their CRTP AND
Paragraph 15 – Officers in receipt of CRTP who are then temporarily promoted do not receive the CRTP from the date the temporary promotion takes effect but the payment is reinstated when the officer returns to his/her substantive rank.
Our finance staff interpreted this to mean that an officer who is acting up continues to receive CRTP until he / she receives the appropriate temporary remuneration for the new rank (i.e. after the 14 day qualifying period) – the payments to ensure that no officer is detrimentally affected as determined in the original CRTP Scheme documentation. They interpreted the “temporary payment” as having the same meaning as “temporary promotion”.
Having now looked again at the wording they now understand that there is also an alternative interpretation in terms of – continuing to pay CRTP whilst the officer is performing “acting upduties” (i.e. as additional) rather than inference of temporary payment at new rate being equivalent to “temporary promotion”. In other words they interpreted the meaning to be that temporary payment at the new rank would take the place of CRTP during the acting up after the 14 days authorisation period.
Our Finance Department have made enquiry regarding our interpretation and believe that our initial interpretation was incorrect. It is interesting from your e mail that potentially other forces may also have made the same interpretation.
Our Finance Department maintains records which will allow us to establish details of any officer who may have been disadvantaged in order to make appropriate remuneration where it is relevant.
It will be obvious from the above that the misunderstanding led to the incorrect insertion of our reply to your second question. The circular was in fact the 04 / 2008 circular from the PNB (and later enacted by HO Circular 18 / 2008) where in paragraphs 14 and 15 the interpretation of cessation of payment was mentioned.
As you can see the misinterpretation of the content of paragraph 15 has led to the error and subsequent confusion.
For the sake of completeness I also refer to your further request regarding provision of a Home Office Circular. As you will see from the above the misinterpretation led to the incorrect response and as such the document you request is not held. I would point out that provision of a copy, had one been held, may in fact have breached copyright legislation and the rights of the “crown”.
Once again thank you for your enquiry on many occasions requests have little value to the organisation but in this instance it has enabled us to commence action to correct the misinterpretation.
Complaint Rights
Your attention is drawn to the attached sheet, which details your right of complaint.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in Derbyshire Constabulary.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or contact Stuart Barlow, Freedom of Information Manager, on telephone number 0345 123 3333quoting the reference number.
Yours sincerely
Stuart Barlow
Freedom of Information Manager
Enc