-

Dear Mr. Martin,

RE: Request to Review Decision - 1295 FOI (PCN High Street Oxford)

I refer to the e-mail response from Mr. Willoughby, dated 27 May 2009, in respect of your Freedom of Information request dated 6 May, and your e-mail request of 27 May for a review.

I have reviewed the Freedom of Information request (1295 FOI) and this letter sets out my decision.

Section 12 of the FOIA provides an exemption from a public authority's obligation to comply with a request for information where the cost of compliance is estimated to exceed the appropriate limit.

The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 state that this cost limit is £600 for central government, legislative bodies and the armed forces (i.e. Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the FOIA) and £450 for all other public authorities.

A public authority must still confirm or deny whether it holds the information requested unless the cost of this alone would exceed the appropriate limit.

In estimating whether complying with a request would exceed the appropriate limit, Regulation 4 (3) states that an authority can only take into account the costs it reasonably expects to incur in:

• determining whether it holds the information;

• locating the information, or a document containing it;

• retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and

• extracting the information from a document containing it.

An authority can take into account the costs attributable to the time that persons (both the authority's staff and external contractors) are expected to spend on these activities. Such costs are calculated at £25 per hour per person for all authorities regardless of the actual cost or rate of pay, which means that the limit will be exceeded if these activities exceed 24 hours for central government, legislative bodies and the armed forces, and 18 hours for all other authorities.

The council has confirmed that it holds the information you requested but, in view of the number of PCNs which would need to be examined, it cannot provide you with the information you request.

The council has estimated that it would take more than 18 hours to analyse the number of PCNs required to supply you with the information requested and, on that basis, cannot provide further details because it would exceed the cost limit of £450 for `all other public authorities' (18 x £25 = £450).

In the circumstances, I believe this is an entirely reasonable estimate and so uphold the decision by Mr. Willoughby in respect of your request.

There is no further right of appeal to the County Council to review the original decision by Mr. Willoughby or mine as set out above. However, you may request the Information Commissioner to review the Council's decisions, and his details are set out below:

The Office of the Information Commissioner

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

www.ico.gov.uk (for information, enquiries, complaints)

ICO helpline: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45

Yours sincerely,

A.R. Cloke

Assistant Head of Legal & Democratic Services

Legal & Democratic Services