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'Ethnic minority admissions for Northampton School For Boys'.
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Mr Attfield By e mail
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Dear Mr Attfield
Review of Freedom of Information Request FR1278
Further to your email of 15 05 2009 where you expressed dissatisfaction at how your FOI request had been dealt with I can confirm that the matter was referred to me to be dealt with as a review under the Freedom of Information Code of Practice issued under s.45 of the Freedom Of Information Act 2000. The Code of Practice states that in these circumstances a review should be conducted.
I have now looked through the paperwork provided to me by the Freedom of Information Team and made my determination.
The basis of the review was that you were not happy with our failure to provide you with the information you had requested which is listed below:-
1. How many children from black/mixed race families have been
admitted to year 7 at Northampton School For Boys over the last
five years ( 2005/6/7/8/9 )
2. How many children from Asian families have been admitted to year
7 at Northampton School For Boys over the last five years (
2005/6/7/8/9 )
From the paperwork provided to me I conclude that our response to you was not as comprehensive, or as detailed as it could have been in order to properly explain our reasons for not being able to provide the information requested.
Accordingly I do consider that there was a breach of s.17 (1) of the act in that a properly worded refusal notice was not provided to you within time. Therefore s.10 of the Act was not complied with as you did not receive a full response within 20 working days.
The Code of Practice states that where the outcome of a complaint is that procedures within an authority have not been properly followed by the authority staff, the authority should apologise to the applicants. The authority should also take appropriate steps to prevent similar errors occurring in future.
Please accept my apologies on behalf of Northamptonshire County Council and the Freedom of Information Team for the failure to comply with the Act in this case.
In relation to the information to the information which you requested, our response should have made the following points clear to you.
The information which was held by us was not for the purposes of admission to NSB
What was held would have been taken from School Census the January on roll figures so not necessarily the actual pupils admitted in September
The information extracted would not have answered your request
Information which could have been extracted would have been exempt under s.12.(1) as exceeding the fee limit set down by regulations £450.00 which equals 18 hours of work due to the commissioning of a report to include ethnicity
This situation arose due to lack of sufficient communication carried out internally to ascertain who held what information its format and where it was. We are also now much more aware of the value of effective communication between departments when dealing with requests. We have already started putting procedures in place to ensure that this situation does not arise again.
Yours sincerely
Paul Edwards
Head of Business Intelligence and Performance
Northamptonshire County Council
Northamptonshire County Council
Please ask for: Paul Edwards
Tel: 01604 237053
Our ref: FR1278
Your ref:
Date: 23 September 2009
Room 91 County Hall
St Georges Row
Northampton
NN1 1DN
w. www.northamptonshire.gov.uk
t. 01604 237053
f. 01604 236644
e. paedwards:@northamptonshire.gov.uk