15 December 2009

Mr S Hardwicke Carruthers

Via email ([FOI #23127 email])

Our ref: CS/09/125/HJP

(Please quote our reference when contacting us)

If telephoning contact Hilary Pook on 020 7217 4734

or if using email send to: h.pook@lgo.org.uk

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Request for information

In your email of 13 November, you asked for documents associated with link officer seminars, the dates seminars were run and which councils attended over the last four years, the course content, the cost of the seminars and the prophet [sic] made by the Commission, and all associated costs (ie tea and biscuits, etc). You also asked for the names and job functions of all link officers.

I consider this to be a vexatious request, as provided by section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act.

Responding to this request would impose a significant burden on the Commission, in gathering the information on the dates, names of councils which took part, and content of the seminars from various offices and teams within the offices; in extracting financial data on the cost of the seminars; and in extracting names of link officers from our database. As link officers' details are the personal data of the people concerned, we would also have to consult them all on whether they were happy for us to disclose this information, in order to comply with the Data Protection Act. In the context of the volume and nature of the all your requests to us (see below), I believe the burden responding to this request would impose amounts to a vexatious burden.

I have asked you why you want the information and you have responded “I would like to know”. Your failure to provide a serious reason suggests to me that the request has no serious purpose or value. This is further suggested by your asking for information on trivial details such as the cost of `tea and biscuits'. For the same reason, I suspect the request is also designed to cause disruption or annoyance, or if not intended, it certainly has that effect.

So far in 2009 you have made 52 requests for information to the Commission. This particular request is one of 13 requests made by you in a period of 16 days. Three of these are repeated requests as provided by section 14(2) of the Freedom of Information Act. I would suggest that the volume and nature of your requests is indicative of the pursuit of an unreasonable obsession. Given that many of your requests continue to be worded so as to elicit admissions of poor performance, I also consider them to constitute a campaign of harassment, even if that is not your intention.

However, I should point out that attendance at a link officer seminar is referred to in the Ombudsmen's annual reviews to councils (the last three years' reviews are on our website), and the Commission does not make any profit on any seminars it runs. Any charges made are only to cover any costs involved, for example, if a venue has to be hired (and, yes, the cost of refreshments).

That concludes my response. If you feel I have not dealt properly with your request, you have the right to appeal and, should you wish to do so, I can supply a copy our internal complaints procedure. If you do request an internal review - can you please indicate why you are unhappy with my response. You also have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner to determine whether your request has been properly dealt with. You should note however that the Commissioner will not consider any complaint where you have not first exhausted our internal complaints process or where there has been undue delay in contacting him. You will be able to obtain further details of the Information Commissioner's role from the website on www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely

Hilary Pook

Hilary Pook

Communications and Records Manager

LGO 01 (03/08)