Annie Wilkes
By email to [FOI #3939 email]
5 November 2008
Dear Ms Wilkes
Freedom of Information request – RFI20081191
Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the
Act”), which was received on 3 November 2008.
You asked for the following information:
“any communications between any employees of the BBC and any employees of the Royal Shakespeare
Company (RSC) during the period from 28 September 2006 to 11 September 2007… any internal
communications between staff at the BBC about communications between the BBC and the RSC, or the
subjects of these communications, for the same period.”
Without knowing which employees or departments hold the records you’re interested in, we are
unable to search for and retrieve the information that you are interested in. Therefore in order to
identify and locate the information that you have asked for we need you to clarify it further, as set
out in section 3 of the Act.
If you would like to submit an amended request, explaining in more detail what information you
are particularly interested in, we will do our best to help. For example, if you could tell us the
names of employees who might have been in communication with the RSC, which team at the
BBC or what the communication concerned (for example did it relate to a particular programme
or event), we will try to locate the information you are interested in.
You should note that the BBC and the other public service broadcasters are covered by the Act
only in respect of information held for purposes “other than those of journalism, art or literature”
(see Schedule I, Part VI of the Act). We are not therefore obliged to supply information held for
the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or information that supports and is closely associated
with these creative activities. If the communication between the BBC and the RSC related to our
programming, it is unlikely to be subject to disclosure under the Act.
For more information about how the Act applies to the BBC please see www.bbc.co.uk/foi .
Your request is on hold until we hear back from you. The period during which a request is on
hold is not included in the 20 working-day target for us to respond. We will close your request if
we have not heard back from you after 20 working days from the date of this letter.
Yours sincerely
Rachel Hallett
Advisor, Information Policy & Compliance
