I refer to your e-mail. As you may be aware, I don't accept a request as validly made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 unless there is an "address for correspondence", which you have not supplied. On an informal basis, however I would tell you that our Information Technology service say that they do not currently undertake any classification of any websites whatsoever. That is the information that had been obtained in connection with the previous invalid request to which you refer.

I don't think it is fair to accuse us of being "highly evasive in relation to freedom of information requests". Since the coming into force of the Act we have processed over 400 separate direct requests from people who wrote letters, sent e-mails (with their name and address) to xxx@xxxxxx.xxx.xx or used our website. In the majority of these cases we have been able to supply the information requested within the statutory time limit. The issue, as I see it, is whether we are legally obliged to comply with requests without an address for correspondence forwarded via a web site that encourages the use of pseudonyms (advising "you can avoid the problem by simply making your pseudonym look like a real person's name") and re-publishes the information without our consent.

I appreciate that the web site refers to advice issued by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, but this is advice to civil servants and does not purport to be a statement of the law. In any event the DCA does not exist any more; most functions having been transferred to the Ministry of Justice in May 2007 and so the web site is not maintained. I would be happy to comply with a legal ruling as to what constitutes "an address for correspondence", but there does not appear to be any, and I would be grateful if you can supply the citation if you are aware of any. As things stand, we only have the wording of the Act and I believe that in order to comply with section 8, the name supplied must be a real name and the "address for correspondence" must be a physical address. This is supported by subsection 2 which goes to the trouble of specifying that a request made by electronic means is still "in writing" (in construing statutes, the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another), and section 14 enables us to refuse "repeated" requests which we clearly couldn't do if people used pseudonyms or non-material addresses. Further, whilst under section 11 you can express a preference for the mode of delivery of the information, we may be unable to comply, possibly because the request relates to material like photographs that cannot be included in an e-mail and has to be sent by post.

P please consider the environment, and do not print this email unless it is really necessary

Dear Sirs

I beleive members of staff at Rother Council are being highly evasive in relation to freedom of information requests. Accordingly I decided to direct this directly to yourself, so I can be assured that it will be handled properly.

I am sure you are aware that any FoI request received by any member of staff should be forwarded to the appropriate department for immediate consideration.

My request (attached) is for information that a member of your staff has said is available, and has offered to provide to another individual under the FoI act, but is refusing (for some undisclosed reason) to allow it to be published - hence an individual request seems to be the only way to find out what the council seem to want to conceal from the general public.

As the council have already stated that the information is available, I would expect a very rapid response (the 28 days allowed for requests is a limit, not a target) - also despite your Staffs repeated mistake of saying that an email address does not count as a 'correspondence address' - they are incorrect. They may have accepted this poiint by now, if not and you are advised otherwise, I suggest you get advise from someone with more experience of FoI than the current 'intereim solicitor' (a David Edwards) who seems to be handling your FoI requests at present.

I look forward to a speedy acknowledgement that this matter is being handled.

Best Regards

Paul Perrin

====== Freedom of Informaiton Request =======

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please forward to me information which Rother District Council (hereafter referred to as RDC) holds on the classification of websites available via http servers on the world wide web.

I request

a) The number and URLs of websites classified by RDC as 'full' (such as http://www.rother.gov.uk )
b) The number and URLs of websites classified by RDC as 'amateurish' (such as http://whatdotheyknow.com )
c) The number and URLs of websites which fall into any other categories which RDC may use.
d) How these classifications are decided upon, and any training manual or procedural documents issued to staff which directs them to use this classification scheme.