Complaints by employees, against other employees

Ref: FOI/23011

RE: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 REQUEST  

West Midlands Fire Service has now completed its search for the information requested on 25^th January 2023

Please find below a summary of our findings.

Request.

For EACH of the previous three fiscal years (i.e. 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22) and 2022/23 - up to December 31 - please can you tell me:

1. The TOTAL number of complaints brought by fire and rescue service employees, against other fire and rescue employees, under the relevant Complaints Procedure; ideally, I wish the data to be broken down by type of grievance/s (e.g. bullying and discrimination, sexual harassment and assault, etc.).

1. The TOTAL number of complaints that were upheld.
2. The TOTAL number of upheld complaints that resulted in disciplinary action.

Reply

WMFS regularly publish into our Scrutiny Committee on these cases via the ‘Dispute Resolution Report’ which are publicly available. Therefore, this information is exempt under section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as this information is reasonably accessible to the requestor. Information concerning our formal grievances can be found on Committee Management Information System (CMIS) website at the following link:

https://wmfs.cmis.uk.com/cmis5/

Please note:

Dispute Resolution Report’ are published as both part of the agenda pack and as separate items. You will need to go into each meeting and see if a Dispute Resolution is listed (not all meetings had them) and you will then be able to download the reports specifically.

Please use the “search” function and documents please search for “Dispute Resolution Report”

For an example, please use link below for Dispute Resolution Report covering period 01/07/2022 – 31/12/2022.

https://wmfs.cmis.uk.com/cmis5/Meetings/tabid/73/ctl/ViewMeetingPublic/mid/410/Meeting/3109/Committee/579/Default.aspx

If you have any queries about this freedom of information request, please contact us.  Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

For service complaints, issues or comments regarding this request please contact The Public Relations Department, West Midlands Fire Service, 99 Vauxhall Road, Birmingham, B7 4HW

Further information concerning Freedom of Information requests can be found on the Information Commissioner website at either the following link: https://ico.org.uk/ or at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF.