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Dear Mr Tonith

Re: Request for Internal Review - Request 4121

Thank you for your emails dated 6^th October and 30^th November 2009 regarding the response to your recent request to the Council (our ref: 4121).

In your emails you expressed dissatisfaction with the handling of your Request. I have summarised the details of your appeal below:

I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with our handling of your requests and I have investigated your complaints under Stage 1 of the Council's Corporate Complaints Procedure. Further details of our procedure can be found on our website: http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/councilgovernmentanddemocracy/councils/contactsconsultationandfeedback/complaints-and-compliments/complaints/

Response

You submitted your original request on the 22^nd July 2009. The Council provided a response on the 8^th September 2009. They then followed this up with a slightly amended response on the same day. You emailed the Council on the 13^th September 2009 asking for clarification on an attachment you had received. You then emailed the Council on the 6^th October on the above points, and followed this up with a further email on the 30^th November 2009 as you had not yet received a response.

In the course of this internal review I will refer to the following provision of the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

Fees notice

The Council issued you with a fees notice in respect of some of the information you requested: "the total number of motorcycle parking spaces available annually from 2004 until the present within Westminster".

The fees notice was based on the estimated amount of time it would take to locate and retrieve the requested information from Traffic Management Orders (TMOs) which are held in manual form. Given the number in existence dating since 2004 (1398) it was estimated that it would take 30 hours in total to locate, and retrieve the information requested.

In reviewing your request, however, I can confirm that the TMOs only contain the details of changes in the number of on-street bays: changes to off-street bays are not subject to TMOs. It is from the information held about the dimensions of these bays, that the Council is able to estimate how many spaces are available. For clarification, the terms "bays" and "spaces" are used as follows: spaces can accommodate a single motorcycle, and bays may include a multiple number of spaces. From the information within the TMOs, therefore, it would be possible to estimate how many spaces may exist in the on-street bays, but this would not fully answer your original question as it would not include the number of off-street spaces.

This fees notice, therefore, should not have been issued in respect of this request, and this aspect of your complaint is, therefore, upheld.

In the course of this review I have investigated whether or not we hold, and are able to provide, the information that you have requested in your original request. I can confirm that it is not possible to give as detailed a breakdown as per the scope of your request. For the purposes of section 1 (4), therefore, not all of the requested information is held by the Council. The only information that the Council can provide with regard to your original request is as follows:

2008, August - approximately 6550 spaces

2009, June - approximately 7203 spaces

2009, October - approximately 7033 spaces

Question 2 of your original request

The second question of your original request referred to question 1 and asked: "Could I ask the reason for the difference over each year."

The Council provided a number of reasons why the number of motorcycle parking spaces may change. In your subsequent emails you commented that you wanted specific, not general, reasons for each change.

Specific information was not given in the original response to your request as determining the reasons for the change would be one of the activities included in the estimation on which the Fees notice was based of how long it would take to process the request. This was not made explicit in the response, however, and as a result this aspect of your complaint is partially upheld.

I can confirm that the Council would only hold information pertaining to the reasons for the changes in numbers in the TMOs, and as previously stated, these would only cover changes in on-street bays. Otherwise the specific reasons for the changes are unlikely to be recorded, although in the case of the decrease of spaces in 2009, I can inform you that this was as a result of the sale of two car parks.

For further information, the TMOs are available for inspection by any member of the public at the West One offices:

West One

59 Buckingham Gate

London

SW1E 6AJ

PCN totals

In your email of the 6^th October you state that there was no attachment of PCN totals since January 2009 in response to your original request for: "details of PCNs given to cars, motorcycles and other forms of transport from January 2009".

I note that the Council provided an attachment entitled "parking offences by vehicle type.xls" in their first email to you on the 8^th September 2009. This spreadsheet, however, provided such information for the periods April 2008 to March 2009. As a result this aspect of your complaint is partially upheld.

I have attached a spreadsheet of the requested information for the period of March until October 2009 with this response.

This completes the internal review into the handling of your Request under the Council's complaints procedure. Should you be dissatisfied with our response, you are entitled to contact the Information Commissioner under Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. For your reference, I have provided his contact details below:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Tel: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45
Fax: 01625 524510

Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

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Under the Data Protection Act 1998, Data Subjects have rights to challenge, alter or erase the inaccurate and unlawful processing of their information. In the first instance please contact The Data Protection Officer, Information Services, 101 Orchardson Street, London NW8 8EA. If you are not satisfied with our response you may contact The Information Commissioner: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF