Dear David
Many thanks for contacting us, the team who look after the
WhatDoTheyKnow.com website. To give you a bit of background about the
site, it has been running for a few months, and is run by a few
volunteers and computer programmers for mySociety (a project of the UK
registered charity, UKCOD who are also responsible for other
successful open governance websites such as WriteToThem.com,
TheyWorkForYou.com, and 10 Downing Street's E-Petitions site). I am
one of the volunteers for the WhatDoTheyKnow.com site.
The way WhatDoTheyKnow.com works is that any member of the public can
register on the site with a valid email address, and then send out FOI
requests. We've tried to make it as easy as possible for the general
public to get involved in promoting openness in governmental
departments by making information released visible to all. Having
information made public and searchable means that it acts as a public
disclosure log, which can actually assist authorities who don't
currently have one - it avoids duplication of their effort in
searching for the information, and replying back to the requester.
There are currently 849 end-users registered on the site, including
journalists and politicians.
The admin team that look after the website add new public authorities
to the site and keep their email addresses up-to-date as best as we
can (we also rely on corrections from FOI officers, public
authorities, and members of the public), redirect replies to the
correct request if they've gone astray, redact any personal
information (eg if a DPA request is mistakenly made, including what
may be private phone numbers), conceal email addresses to diminish
spam, and carry out (code) enhancements, add new features requested by
users, and bugfixes for the website.
Any FOI requests that the site admins make via the WhatDoTheyKnow.com
site are personal, carried out under their actual names, and do not
constitute the opinions of or are endorsed by mySociety.
Regarding the statistics you quote compared to your neighbours, I can
only presume this is due to the publicity caused by the popular BBC
FOI blog "Open Secrets" surrounding your replies to the original FOI
request (concerning Common Purpose) to Rother District Council:
<<http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2008/04/rother_bother.html>>
<<http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2008/06/whatdo_theypost.html>>
<<http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2008/07/more_bovver_with_rovver.html>>
The interest in RDC appears to be mainly due to it being the only
public authority that has responded to FOI requests via
WhatDoTheyKnow.com that has strictly interpreted Section 8(1)b
"address for correspondence" as "postal address". There may be other
public authorities that make similar interpretations of the FOIA,
however this may not be widely known given the previous situation of
private correspondence between FOI requesters and public authorities.
We should also like to point out that the Ministry of Justice FOI
guidance does not agree with RDC's interpretation of Section 8(1)b
(<<http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/foi-procedural-what.htm>>).
This interest by the public in RDC may also account for some of the
subsequent FOI requests regarding your internal FOI and Re-use of
Public Sector Information policies.
To assist you in trying to resolve the current situation, we can offer
a couple of options:
* The best and easiest solution would be for RDC to answer the current
FOI requests. This will get you and the Council good publicity,
reduce the number of similar requests, and will set a good precedent
for Freedom of Information.
* RDC could treat any current or future request from
WhatDoTheyKnow.com as if it originated via an organised campaign, and
issue Section 17 refusal notices claiming Section 14 Vexatious
Requests. I would recommend that you treat each requester on the site
as an unrelated private individual. Of course, this may result in
negative publicity for the Council, mySociety projects typically
express a comment to this effect.
* If you wish to contact any of the users privately (for example to
ask them to withdraw their FOI requests), there is a facility on the
website to do so - click on the Name of the requester, then click the
"Send Message to ..." link. The requests made to RDC
<<http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/rother_district_council>> were
made by 8 unique user accounts. If they agree, we will carry out
their wishes.
* In addition, if there is any personal information in the messages
that appear on the WhatDoTheyKnow.com site, please give us details of
URLs and paragraphs, and we will endeavour to redact the specific
text.
Please let us how you would prefer to proceed with regards to the above.
If (against MoJ guidance) you would prefer not to answer the requests,
please could you let us know the legal basis for this - is it your
opinion that you are not legally obliged by FOI law to answer them?
Please bear in mind that some authorities that are not legally obliged
to answer FOI requests (as they are not covered by Schedule 1) still
do so in the spirit of openness, eg Camera Safety Partnerships. You
will also be able to answer the requests as part of your "business as
usual" correspondence processes
I'm very sorry that you feel harrassed by the FOI requests and
subsequent correspondence made via WhatDoTheyKnow.com, however the
site admins don't vet or censor requests that are sent by members of
the public prior to them being emailed to authorities, and are not
responsible for their contents. I would like to reassure you that
there is definitely no campaign of harassment being carried out by
members of the admin team or the mySociety organisation.
None of the 11 FOI requests made via the site to RDC contain
references to "highly evasive in relation to freedom of information
requests" or allege that you are a member of the Senior Management
Team. I would be very grateful if you could you let us know on which
other internet site this was published.
I do sincerely believe that you support Freedom of Information, and I
hope that the Information Commissioner will help you clarify the
situation regarding Section 8(1)b as soon as possible.
If there is any other way we can help, please let us know.
Kind regards
Alex Skene
Site Volunteer - WhatDoTheyKnow.com
2008/7/25 David Edwards <xxxxx.xxxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx.xx>:
> I think this may be an appropriate point in time to "clear the air". I have
> raised various issues regarding the legality of requests for information
> received by us from your website. I have attempted to explain my reasoning,
> but it would appear that all I have achieved is to upset you so that I have
> received some fairly blunt e-mails recently; that was not my intention. I
> am a present putting together a letter to the Information Commissioner
> seeking guidance on these issues. I think it would have been better for all
> concerned if clear unequivocal guidance about issues such as "address for
> correspondence" had been issued; perhaps now it will be.
>
> This morning I see there is a further request from Richard Jackson. Having
> regard to the advice that appears on your website regarding "pseudonyms", I
> suspect Richard Jackson is a pseudonym. I have to say that I suspect that
> his latest request, and other recent requests received from you, are
> actually being produced by you and that you are using various pseudonyms. I
> have formed that view because, with the exception of the enquiries about
> Fishing and "Common Purpose", they all have a common theme, and they have
> all been submitted within a very short time-frame as our disagreement
> developed. Most significantly, I have looked at your website to compare
> total numbers of enquiries received with those received by other Councils.
> Including the latest, and the one we answered in April, Rother has received
> 11 enquiries via your website. This is more than the total enquiries
> received by all the neighbouring/nearby authorities including two County
> Councils and a Unitary, who normally receive far more direct inquiries than
> a District like Rother would expect. Looking further afield I see that
> Manchester City Council has received 4 enquiries and Westminster City
> Council, just 3. I have prepared a little table to demonstrate the point:in
> relation to our local area:
>
>
> Council
>
> Number of requests
>
> Brighton & Hove Unitary
>
> 3
>
> East Sussex County Council
>
> 1
>
> Eastbourne Borough
>
> 1
>
> Hastings Borough
>
> 0
>
> Kent County Council
>
> 2
>
> Lewes District
>
> 0
>
> Rother District
>
> 11
>
> Shepway District
>
> 0
>
> Tunbridge Wells Borough
>
> 2
>
> Wealden District
>
> 0
>
>
> There is no likelihood of this pattern occurring in the ordinary course of
> events and I am forced to the conclusion that this Council is the subject of
> a campaign of harassment that you are conducting through your website. Will
> you please stop it and remove the relevant enquiries, from your website. In
> a spirit of compromise, if the remainder are removed, I will answer the
> questions about Fishing and Common Purpose without prejudice, pending
> clarification by the Information Commissioner, to my position regarding
> their validity.
>
> You will be familiar with the advice issued by the Information Commissioner
> in Awareness Guidance 22, and I think that on the basis of the information
> available these requests can be refused on the ground of their being
> vexatious, but I suggest that it would be best for all concerned if they
> were just withdrawn.
>
> I also have to say that I am unhappy about the references to me
> personally and my position appearing on the Internet. I am not, even in my
> interim capacity, part of the Senior Management Team. I regard this as an
> invasion of my right to privacy. It may be the campaign about which I am
> complaining is directed at me personally, and it does cause me distress, but
> it also causes unnecessary expense to the Council, and thereby Council Tax
> payers; please accept my apologies if any of you actually live here.
>
> I know you won't believe this, but I will say anyway because it is the
> truth, that I have actually always supported Freedom of Information and have
> preferred to release information in the absence of clear reasons not to do
> so. If you will look at the Information Commissioner's web site you will see
> that there has never been a complaint against this Council, and that is a
> record of which I and my colleagues are proud. I imagine that there may
> well be complaints on their way initiated by yourselves, but I would ask you
> to reconsider whether you have the right target. In a recent e-mail we were
> accused of being "highly evasive in relation to freedom of information
> requests"; if that were really true, surely there would have been complaints
> to the Information Commissioner by at least some of the 400 people who have
> made direct requests to us.
>
> I await your response.
>
>
> Regards,
> David.
> David Edwards
> Interim Solicitor, Rother D.C.
> Town Hall, Bexhill TN39 3JX Tel: 01424-787840
> www.rother.gov.uk
>
> P please consider the environment, and do not print this email unless it is
> really necessary
>
>
>
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