Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
31st March 2025
Our Ref: FOI2025/01943
Request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 Ref No: FOI2025/01943
I write in connection with your request for information received on 28th February. I note you seek access to the following information:
- How many equality and diversity posts, uniformed and nonuniformed, are employed by your police force?
2. What is the cost of such posts and necessary direct admin support?
3. How many of these posts are filled by ethnic minority applicants?
4. What is the number and cost of external and internal training bodies and courses for equality and diversity training?
5. What is the total additional costs that I have no requested here for these specific roles across your police force?
Clarification Requested
In question one you ask:
"1. How many equality and diversity posts, uniformed and nonuniformed, are employed by your police force?"
Are you referring to uniformed and un-uniformed Officers only or Officers and civilians ?
In question two you ask:
"2. What is the cost of such posts and necessary direct admin support?"
Are you asking what their wages cost p.a. in this question ?
Clarification Received
1. I am referring to anyone who is employed by your police force, uniformed or non-uniformed.
2. Wages, possibly pensions too if applicable
I am required by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (The Act) to handle all requests in a manner that is blind to the identity of the requestor. Any information released in response to a request is regarded as being published and therefore, in the public domain without caveat.
Response: Following searches conducted throughout the Constabulary please see our response below:
- 2
- The total cost is £73,077.00 – the data has been presented as a total to avoid a Section 40 exemption.
Furthermore, it is important to note that one of the employees, although employed and paid by Cambridgeshire Constabulary works within a collaborated Unit, so therefore assumes responsibility for tasks for all three forces [Bedfordshire Police, Cambridgeshire & Hertfordshire Constabularies].
- Exempt by virtue of Section 38 & 40, please see exemption information below.
Again, it is important to note that Self Defined Ethnicity/Race is a voluntary, not a mandatory disclosure at BCH. Therefore the data held is often incomplete and therefore, does not provide a true reflection.
- Nil
- Nil
Cambridgeshire Constabulary can confirm that it holds additional information in relation to your request however, I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.
Such information is exempt under the following exemptions:
Section 38 (1)(a)(b) – Health and Safety
Section 40 (2) – Personal Information
The Section 38 exemption is a prejudice based qualified exemption, which requires the prejudice (harm) to be evidenced and a public interest test to be carried out.
The Section 40 exemption is a class based absolute exemption. This means that the legislators have identified that there would be harm in disclosure and there is no need to evidence this or carry out a public interest test.
Evidence of Harm
Cambridgeshire Constabulary will not divulge information if to do so would risk the indirect identification of Police staff, even to themselves. Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of our organisation, once information is disclosed the force will have no control of who sees the information.
There is a risk that email accounts will be targeted, perhaps by a disgruntled individual, or bombarded with email traffic for no other purpose than to disrupt the normal day-to-day running of business email correspondence, such disruption would undermine the work of the organisation generally.
Public Interest Considerations
Factors in favour of disclosure
Providing information would increase public awareness of the self-defined ethnicity breakdown of individuals employed within Cambridgeshire Constabulary. This would increase communication between the Force and the public.
Factors in favour of non-disclosure
Disclosing information regarding individual employees’ protected characteristics would harm the force’s operational ability by allowing disgruntled members of the public to target an individual or bombard a particular Department with email traffic for no other purpose than to disrupt the normal day-to-day running of business email correspondence.
There would be an impact on police resources if disclosure of the information allowed an increase in unnecessary email traffic.
Furthermore, the harm test within the FOIA legislation is well articulated in terms of balancing the rights of individuals.
The numbers of employees within our Force is relatively small and it is important that employees can operate in a risk-free environment.
This point relating to physical and emotional safety is not unrealistic or fanciful, this has been a reality recently with employees being identified, resulting in members of the press and the public attending their home address causing anxiety not only to the employee but also to members of their family. This could easily have been others with more nefarious intent.
Balancing Test
The points above highlight the merits for and against providing information that is relevant to this request. Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of the organisation, providing assurance that Cambridgeshire Constabulary can appropriately and effectively undertake its daily work without disruption is vital.
Due to the pressures on the Force, it is not in the public interest to allow information to be disclosed that may disrupt activity within the organisation.
Therefore, the balancing test for disclosure is not made out.
The numerical data presented in this response is an un-audited snapshot of un-published data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.