Report Summary
Issued 5 June 2023, this FOI response provides correspondence concerning the RPE / clean shaven policy and explains why some of the information is exempt from disclosure.
Response
Appendix 1 – Redacted copy email sent on 1 May 2023, from Police Scotland Policy Support titled “Mandatory Consultation for the Respiratory Protective Equipment SOP”. Documents attached to the email provided as Appendix 1 are provided separately as Appendix 5 and 6 – further detail on the attachments are listed below.
Appendix 2 – Redacted copy email sent on 3 May 2023, from Police Scotland Policy Support titled “Mandatory Consultation for the Respiratory Protective Equipment SOP”.
Appendix 3 – Redacted copy email trail sent on 4 May 2023, from Police Scotland HR Policy titled “Mandatory Consultation for the Respiratory Protective Equipment SOP”. This email was issued as a forwarded message – for the initial email in this trail refer to Appendix 1.
Appendix 4 – Redacted copy email trail sent on 5 May 2033, from Police Scotland Governance, Audit & Assurance/NFEL/Public Inquiries, titled “RPE Policy Update”.
Appendix 5 (see attached) - Copy of Police Scotland, Mandatory Consultation Feedback form. This was an attachment to the email provided as Appendix 1.
In this instance we are unable to provide some of the information requested. Therefore, this is a notice in terms of Section 16 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
The exemption considered to be applicable is section 38(1)(b) - Personal Information. The information which has been withheld is personal data of third parties. Disclosure of the data in question would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. As disclosure through Freedom of Information is disclosure to the public in general, in this instance, it is appropriate to redact information that may identify an individual, e.g. name, job title, initials. This is an absolute exemption which does not require a public interest test to be conducted.
The Draft Respiratory Protective Equipment SOP V0.06, was an attachment to the email provided as at Appendix 1. This has not been provided at this time as third-party consultation is in progress.
Consultation feedback on the Respiratory Protective Equipment Procedure, was an attachment to the email provided as Appendix 3. This has not been provided at this time as third-party consultation is in progress.
We will aim to communicate a decision in relation to each of these as soon as possible.
