Rise in police referrals to watchdog is revealed after eight-month wait

NEW figures show that more Derbyshire Constabulary officers were referred to the police watchdog in 2024 than any of the last five years, but the battle to obtain the data has taken nearly nine months.

- By OSCAR FISHER

The Derby Telegraph and its website, Derbyshire Live, submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) on December 30, asking for statistics on the number of officers referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over the last five years.

It requested data for each calendar year, from 2020 to 2024, and whether the referrals were voluntary or mandatory.

The Freedom of Information Act, introduced by Tony Blair’s government, aims to give the public access to information held by authorities including police, councils and the NHS.

They have 20 working days to respond to the request, and can reject, partially-reject or grant the request, with rejections often coming as a result of privacy issues or time constraints.

After the request was submitted, the Derby Telegraph was told by Derbyshire Constabulary’s FOI team on January 23 that it could only share the data from 2023 onwards, citing “the introduction of new software that allows for searching to take place’, which affected section 12 of the FOI Act (2000).