FOI request (FOIR-617154215)

Investigative software

Requested Fri 24 May 2024
Responded Fri 02 August 2024

This FOI request pertains to your use of third-party investigative software, which considers software used to collect, analyse, and report on issues/breaches of policy in your council.

Examples of this software include case management, financial investigation, digital forensics, and covert operations software.

If some data is not available or falls under an exemption, please respond with the available information, and provide an explanation for each missing or exempted item.

1. Please list the departments that conduct investigations into issues/breaches of policy (for example, for fraud, planning enforcement, licensing, and so on) in your council?

a. Please list the approximate number of FTEs (full time employees) that work on investigations in each department.

b. If not covered in question 1a, please also note the number of total FTEs focused on fraud (and note the number of fraud specialists specifically) in your council.

2. Considering third-party investigative software (for example, for case management, financial investigation, covert operations, and so on), is this software typically procured by a centralised council IT team or by each investigation department?

3. What was your councils overall spend on third-party investigative software last year?

4. In percentage terms, approximately how has your overall spend on third-party investigative software, on an annual basis, changed over the past 3 years?

a. What is the reason for this change? For example, an increase in number of users within existing departments, an increase in departments adopting new software, price increases, and so on.

5. For each of the following categories of investigative software, please indicate if your council uses this category of software, noting your annual spend for each and your current software provider(s) if so:

a. Case management software - Software used as a central hub to manage cases (from incident to reporting), including to ingest and manage relevant evidence, track case progress, and prepare reports for court proceedings.

b. Financial investigation software - Software designed for extracting, cleaning, analysing, and/or visualising financial data and information to investigate fraud or other financial crimes.

c. Covert operations software - Software for planning, managing, and executing covert operations, including surveillance management, undercover operations, intelligence gathering, and secure communication tools.

d. Other investigative software - Please provide a high-level summary of what other includes.

Response

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

The Freedom of Information Act is based on recorded information held by a local authority, it is a not a tool to ask questions.

1. Planning Enforcement and Fraud

1a. 2

1b. Information not held.

2. This is not a request for recorded information and therefore falls outside the remit of the Act.

3. Information not held. Our budgets are general and not specific to investigative work.

4. Information not held. Our budgets are general and not specific to investigative work.

5. See above.