Firearms Officers

1) Within your force please disclose how many officers were trained and authorised to use a firearm (henceforth called "Firearms Officers") for the years 2007, 2008 & 2009?  For this purpose a firearm is defined as a weapon designed to deliver lethal injury to the target with a projectile, e.g. pistol, rifle, shotgun etc but excludes non-lethal weapons such as Tasers. In cases where a weapon may be dual-purpose and loaded non-lethal ammunition (such as rubber bullets) this should still be considered as a firearm.

2) In relation to these Firearms Officers please disclose the following:
a) How many days of training are they required to attend in order to obtain authorisation to use a firearm?
b) How many days of training are they required to attend each year in order to retain authorisation to use a firearm?
c) In respect to the two above points, on average how many days of firearms training do they actually attend?
d) How much of this training actively involves using/firing a firearm? [Please show this as a percentile or number of days per annum

3) How much of the actual weapons training is based around dealing with incidents within an urban environment (e.g. a street or residential situation)? [Please show this as a percentile or number of days per annum]

4) Do you have ‘specialist’ skill sets in relation to the Firearms Officers, e.g. marksmen/snipers? If so please disclose the following:

a) What ‘specialist’ firearms skills does your force use?
b) For each of these ‘specialist’ firearms skills how many Firearms Officers are trained to that level?
c) For each of these ‘specialist’ skills how much further training are the Firearms Officers required to attend over and above the baseline firearms training courses (as set out in Q2)? [Please give numbers of days per annum]
d) How much of the ‘specialist’ weapons training is based around dealing with incidents within an urban environment (e.g. a street or residential situation)? [Please show this as a percentile or number of days per annum]

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

Question 1. The number of authorised firearms officer is published by the Home Office annually. This information is therefore accessible to you by other means and is exempt information in accordance with section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please see the following web pages.

Home Office Police Firearms Use 2007-08

Question 2 & 4. We have now considered this part of your request and we are not obliged to provide this information.

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Cheshire Constabulary, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you with a notice which a) states that fact, b) specifies the exemption in question and c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

The information is exempt by virtue of:

Section 31(1) (a) (b) (c) Law Enforcement.

Detailing information about training of Firearms Officers could provide those with criminal intent with information on which they can make an assessment of the force’s capability, experience and preparedness. This may assist them in planning an attack. This is particularly important when we look at the threats that we face today from many different quarters including international terrorism. We detail below the public interest considerations that have been applied to this information.

Considerations favouring Disclosure

The police service is charged with enforcing the law, preventing and detecting crime and protecting the communities we serve and there is a public interest in the transparency of policing operations. Disclosure could provide the public with an understanding that public funds are being used appropriately.

Considerations favouring Non-Disclosure

The current and future law enforcement role of the service would be compromised by the disclosure of a force’s capability in relation to firearms officers with specialist skills. Disclosure would technically be providing sensitive operational information into the public domain, which would enable those with the time, capacity and inclination to try and map strategies used by forces to protect national security (particularly if continual subsequent requests were made for different locations).

The risk to national security and thus to the public would be further increased, due to those with the capacity to map data and use their understanding of police tactics

Additionally, police resources and the force’s ability to operate effectively and efficiently would directly be affected as this information can be manipulated by those with criminal intent to operate in those areas and this will ultimately lead to more deployment being needed in areas. By disclosing where it is potentially safe for criminals to operate in will lead to disclosure of police tactics and methods in detecting and preventing crime.

Balance Test

The Police Service is charged with enforcing the law, the prevention and detection of crime and protecting the public. Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing operations and providing assurance that the police service is appropriately and effectively enforcing the law there is a strong public interest in safeguarding the safety of the public and police operations.

As much as there is public interest in knowing that policing training is appropriate. The areas of police training in specialist firearms skills is a sensitive issue that reveals local intelligence therefore it is our opinion that for these issues the balancing test for disclosing the requested information is not made out.

Question 3. We do not hold specific recorded information regarding this question.