My complaint concerns the responses to questions 2 and 3 of my FOI

request of 24 November 2009 for "costs and contracts of the

Derbyshire Crime Map", which were to send me:

"(2) The costs incurred by the contractors related to building and

maintaining the site.

"(3) Copies of the contracts and agreements signed with these

contractors-- including any termination clauses which may have been

invoked following the launch of the national crime map."

The response by Derbyshire Constabulary to (2) was:

"We do not hold this information - it would be held by the

contractor not the Force."

This was a deliberately literal interpretation of my question,

which I had clearly intended to mean:

"What were the costs incurred TO THE DERBYSHIRE CONSTABULARY by the

contractors related to building and maintaining the site?"

The response by Derbyshire Constabulary to (3) was to cite an out

of context statement from a very obscure Tribunal Decision - N.

Ingle v Information Commissioner 29 June 2007 (EA/2007/0023), as

justification for refusing the disclosure of any document in

principle.

I should not need to outline the well-established principle that it

is in the public interest to publish contracts with suppliers in

order to create a fair marketplace. Numerous decisions by the

Commissioner and the Tribunal which you will be aware of attest to

that.

However, I will quote from an interview with the current

Information Commissioner, Chris Graham:

"It should be absolutely routine that details of contracts, value

of contracts, expenses, minutes of top-level meetings just should

be up there on departmental websites."