FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

Your request for information of 6 August has now been considered and the information requested is detailed below.

The City of London manages more than 2,700 council-run properties across six London boroughs - Hackney, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets. It also has two housing estates - Golden Lane and Middlesex Street - within the Square Mile itself and manages the private residential Barbican Estate with 2000 properties.

The City of London has already provided digital access for all of our housing estates. It has opted for a 5 wire system which is being seen as the standard up and down the country which gives access to terrestrial, Sky and DAB radio with the possibility of adding SKY + and HD. A full comprehensive maintenance contract is in place to provide service 7/365 to all systems with two site service visits per year to each estate.

Comprehensive maintenance costs are £13 per annum for each property. Installation costs differed across the properties based on the nature of the works, individual leases and the percentage of estate wide costs which are attributable to each property. As a guide, average costs per installation, per flat equated to £250 but this was dependant on the size of the estate, whether it included tower blocks as well as low rise and accessible cable routes either using normal access equipment or specialist abseiling specialists

The City of London has recently won an Accreditation Award from `Homes Set for Digital' and we believe we were the first local authority to achieve this.

If you have any queries or concerns, please contact me.

If you wish to make a complaint about the way the City of London has handled your enquiry under the Freedom of Information Act, please make your complaint in writing to our Complaints Officer, Graham Watson, Department of Community and Children's Services, City of London, PO Box 270, Guildhall, London EC2P 2EJ; email: [email address]. Here is a link to our FOI Complaints Leaflet, which explains our procedure for providing an independent review of complaints.

If, having used the City of London's FOI Complaints Procedure, you are still dissatisfied, you may request the Information Commissioner to investigate. The Information Commissioner is a Crown appointment, responsible for monitoring compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. Please contact: Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Telephone: (01625) 545700. You may also like to visit the website of his Office at: http://www.ico.gov.uk/.

Yours sincerely,

Sharon McLaughlin

Support Services Manager

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