External Training Courses

1. All external training courses that your police officers (of all levels and seniority) have been sent on in the past two financial years (07-08 and 08-09).  Please include in the data (if within costs limits) the following:  The name of the course, a description of what the course involved, how many officers and of what seniority attended, how long the course lasted, and the total cost of the course).
2. I would also like to know how many internal training courses officers have been sent on in the last two years.
3. Please note that for request 2. I only need one total figure - I do not need any of the additional details asked for in request 1.

In accordance with section 1(1) (b) of the Act our response is provided below;

Question 1. Please see the attached Excel sheet

FOI 2112 External Courses

In addition to the information provided the Cheshire Constabulary can neither confirm nor deny that it holds any other information relevant to training courses which may or may not be provided by exempt bodies as the duty in Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply, by virtue of the following exemption:

Section 23(5) Information supplied by or concerning certain Security Bodies

Section 23 is a class based absolute exemption and there is no requirement to consider the public interest test in this area. That being said, we are happy to articulate that recent demands on the Police Service have highlighted a necessity to engage with other agencies when seeking specialised training. Many of these bodies are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. We are unable to confirm that training is, or is not received by these agencies, by virtue of the Section 23 exemption.

No inference can be taken by this refusal that the Cheshire Constabulary does or does not hold any further information relating to this request.

Question 2. For the period March 2007 to April 2009, Police Officers of all ranks have attended 14,450 (Fourteen Thousand, Four Hundred and Fifty) internal training courses by event.