Drug and alcohol testing (FOI ref: 1384A/25

Request

1. Please provide (redacted if necessary) a copy of WMP drug & alcohol policy, a policy which deals with the random or at cause testing of officers & staff for drugs and/or alcohol. Please provide the latest copy of this document.

2. Who is the senior officer responsible for the compliance of the policy, by rank and position held.

3. Please provide data for the last 12 months where data is available:

a) Total number of drugs/alcohol tests administered broken down into warranted officers and non-warranted police staff.

b) Number of positive tests broken down as in a) above and further broken down to show if they were for drugs and alcohol, or drugs or alcohol alone.

c) How many warranted officers have been subject to disciplinary action after a positive test.

d) How many unwarranted police staff have been subject to disciplinary action after a positive test?

e) How many officers/staff have refused to complete a test and have been disciplined for such a refusal if that is a sanction within the force policy?

Response

1. Please provide (redacted if necessary) a copy of WMP drug & alcohol policy, a policy which deals with the random or at cause testing of officers & staff for drugs and/or alcohol. Please provide the latest copy of this document.

Please find attached (‘Substance Misuse - V2.1 – Policy_Redacted.pdf’).

A small amount of information has been redacted prior to disclosure. The direct contact details and links relating to the Employee Assistance Programme have been withheld under Section 43(32) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, as disclosure could prejudice the commercial interests of the service provider. In addition, the names of staff members associated with the policy. Other than the Force Executive Lead, have been removed under Section 40(2), as disclosure would contravene data protection principles.

These are minimal redactions which do not affect the overall content or understanding of the policy. The remainder of the document has been provided in full.

2. Who is the senior officer responsible for the compliance of the policy, by rank and position held.

Mr Gillett - Director of People and Commercial Services.

3. Please provide data for the last 12 months where data is available.

a) Total number of drugs/alcohol tests administered broken down into warranted officers and non-warranted police staff.

76 Random drug tests completed: 71 x Police Officers; 5 x Police staff.

b) Number of positive tests broken down as in a) above and further broken down to show if they were for drugs and alcohol, or drugs or alcohol alone.

There were no positive results.

c) How many warranted officers have been subject to disciplinary action after a positive test.

None

d) How many unwarranted police staff have been subject to disciplinary action after a positive test?

None

e) How many officers/staff have refused to complete a test and have been disciplined for such a refusal if that is a sanction within the force policy?

There have been no refusals.

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that this data has been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request may be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting the data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of data which has relevance to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.