Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Procurements & Contracts Division
Area 4D
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR
Telephone 08459 33 55 77
Email [email address]
Website www.defra.gov.uk
Mr John Walker
request-28091-
[email address]
Our ref RFI3217 / FOI218
Date 16 April 2010
Dear Mr Walker,
Request for information: Payments to Teri-Europe and Dr R K Pachaurih
Thank you for your request for information for details made by Defra to Teri-Europe and Dr
R K Pachauri since 2004. Your request has been considered under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. I apologise for the prolonged delay in responding to you request.
Details of payments made to Teri-Europe are:
Name
Year
Amount (£)
Teri - Europe
2007-2008
27,240.00
Teri – Europe
2007-2008
27,240.00
Teri - Europe
2007-2008
29,640.00
Teri - Europe
2008-2009
52, 080.00
With regard to your request for details of payments to Dr Pachauri, we are withholding
this information under the exemption in section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA), which relates to personal data relating to third parties. Section 40(2)
exempts from disclosure personal data relating to third parties where disclosure would
breach the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). In this case, details of payments made to
Dr Pachauri are his personal data and we believe that disclosure of the information
would breach the first data protection principle in Schedule 1 of the DPA in two ways.
First, disclosure would not constitute ‘fair’ processing of the personal data and, second,
disclosure would not satisfy
any of the conditions for data processing set out in Schedule 2 of the DPA. Consequently,
we believe that section 40(2) of the FOIA exempts the information from disclosure.
You have also requested a breakdown of the details and individual costs of goods,
services and works provided. To provide would cause divert a vast amount of our
resources from the normal business of the Department as we would need to interrogate
multiple databases and other sources to manually create the information requested. For
the Department to undertake this analysis would take considerably more than the £600
cost limit set under the Freedom of Information Act. The cost limit has been specified in
regulations and for Central Government it is set at £600. This represents the estimated
cost of one civil servant spending 31/2 working days in determining whether the
Department holds the information and locating, retrieving and extracting information.
Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act the Department is not obliged to
comply with this part of your request and we will not be processing it further.
Details of copyright restrictions applying to the information that has been disclosed to you
are in Annex A
In keeping with the spirit and effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 all information
is assumed to be releasable to the public unless exempt. The information disclosed to you
may now be published on our website together with any related information that will
provide a key to its wider context.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. I also attach Annex B giving
contact details should you be unhappy with the service you have received.
Yours sincerely
Shona Paul
Procurement Information Coordinator
Procurement and Contracts Division
Annex A
The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-
commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-
use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright
holder. Most documents supplied by Defra will have been produced by government
officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-
using Crown copyright on OPSI (Office of Public Sector Information) at:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm
Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be protected
by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You
must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any third party (non Crown
Copyright) information.
_____________________________________________
Annex B
Complaints
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request you may
make a complaint or appeal against our decision within 40 working days of the date of this
letter. Please write to Clive Porro, Head of Defra’s Information Rights Team at, Area1B
Ergon House, Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AL, (email:
[email address]) who will arrange for an internal review of your case.
Details of Defra’s complaints procedure can be found at:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/policy/opengov/complain/info.htm
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Please note that generally the
Information Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have first exhausted
Defra’s own complaints procedure. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
