20 February 2009

Mr S Hardwicke Carruthers

Via email ([FOI #4767 email])

Our ref: CS/08/0115/HJP

(Please quote our reference when contacting us)

If telephoning contact Hilary Pook on 020 7217 4734

or if using email send to: [email address]

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Request for information

In your email of 12 December, you referred to a letter of `about 28 October' in which Nigel Karney “identified that he had been authorised by the DCLG to apply a public interest test to an FOI request please provide a copy of his authorisation”. I believe you are referring to the s.36 certificate Mr Karney sent you, dated 28 October, in relation to your request CS/08/046.

Mr Karney applied the s.36 exemption to your request for information. That exemption is a qualified exemption and as such the Freedom of Information Act requires that the public interest test be applied before a decision not to disclose the full information requested is made. Mr Karney does not need authorisation from the Department to apply the public interest test - he is obliged to do so by the Act. Therefore, the authorisation from the DCLG to apply the public interest test you requested does not exist.

Mr Karney is the Deputy Chief Executive & Secretary of the Commission for Local Administration in England, and is employed by the Commission, not by the DCLG.

Yes, in response to your request for clarification, the Commission is independent of Government and is responsible for its own decisions - although it is funded by Government and the DCLG is its sponsoring Department.

All the members of the CLAE since 1989 are as follows:

/…

All Parliamentary Ombudsmen listed have been members ex officio of the Commission. The Commission has never appointed additional members.

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. 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

H J Pook

Hilary Pook (Ms)

Communications and Records Manager

cc: Jenny Saunders, Information Commissioner's Office

LGO 01 (03/08)