Marlon Campbell
Communities, Law &
Via Email
Governance
[FOI #27339 email]
Direct Line – 020 7525 3441
Fax – 020 7525 7675
[Southwark Borough Council request email]
19 March 2010
Dear Mr Campbell
Re: Your appeal Ref No. 4705(0) against request for information: Ref No. 4705
The appeal you made against our original response to your request for information Ref 4705
has been successful and the information requested is enclosed in the form of an attachment.
Although your appeal was successful and we are providing the information, collating the
same did in fact exceed the ‘prescribed limit’ of £450 set for local authorities under the
Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.
This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether
we hold the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the same.
In your request for an internal review you state that the council’s original response failed to
comply with the duty, set out in section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which
requires all public authorities to provide reasonable advice and assistance to applicants. We
can confirm that the council always endeavours to comply with this obligation. However as
our original response was that we estimated providing the information would exceed the
‘prescribed limit’ of £450 we accept that additional assistance could have been provided to
help you determine whether it was possible to reframe your request so that it fell within that
limit. We can only apologise for this omission.
Finally I can confirm that we have no ‘reporting information’ relating to the council’s Freedom
of Information activity for the past 3 years. However, as explained in our original response
we are, within the next few months, implementing a new database that will in future enable
us to provide reports detailing Freedom of Information data. This data will be published in
accordance with the guidance issued to local authorities in July 2009 by the Ministry of
Justice.
I hope the above is to your satisfaction, however should you still have any queries or
concerns then please contact us using the above details.
Further information on the
Freedom of Information Act is available through the Information
Commissioner at the:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
Internet: www.ico.gov.uk
Communities, Law & Governance, PO Box 64529, London SE1P 5LX
Switchboard - 020 7525 5000
Website - www.southwark.gov.uk
Chief Executive – Annie Shepperd
Yours sincerely,
Ian Mark
Senior Lawyer
Communities, Law & Governance
Communities, Law & Governance, PO Box 64529, London SE1P 5LX
Switchboard - 020 7525 5000
Website - www.southwark.gov.uk
Chief Executive – Annie Shepperd
