Dear Mr Blair,

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000, Response to Appeal

Reference No: 51389

We have now considered your appeal (submitted by email on 03 March 2009) of our original response to you. In summary, we now provide you with a copy of the requested contract but with specific information redacted and withheld as applied with Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This information is supplied to you in a PDF format as the contract exists as a hardcopy and has been scanned to provide you with an electronic copy as requested.

Your appeal concerns your specific requests (your original numbering of these):

1. Copies of any contracts you have for the provision of temporary worker agency staff. Contracts you may have with individual agency staff recruitment businesses/services, hereafter called 'Vendors'. Or contracts you may have with organisations like, Comensura, Manpower, Reed, hereafter called 'Managed Service Provider' who provide Master/Vendor Neutral framework to manage all vendors on behalf of Public Authorities like yourselves.

3. A copy of any contract/agreement used by yourself or any Managed Service Provider to manage individual Vendors through any Master/Vendor Neutral framework you operate or participate in, this is sometimes called a Panel Vendor Agreement.

We confirmed in our original response to you that the Council contracts Reed as a 'Managed Service Provider'. We now provide you with a copy of the contract between the Council and Reed with redacted information. Specific financial information (as constitutes the contracts supporting documents) has been redacted and withheld as it applies to Section 43 (1) and (2). We have applied this exemption because the requested information relates to commercially sensitive information and information which constitutes trade secrets i.e. pricing structures. If the requested information was released to the general public this could jeopardise any future negotiations between the Council and its suppliers and could also likely provide an unfair advantage to other organisations.

Section 43, Commercial interests, of the Act states:

(1) Information is exempt information if it constitutes a trade secret.

(2) Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it).

(3) The duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, compliance with section 1(1)(a) would, or would be likely to, prejudice the exemptions mentioned in subsection (2).

This is a qualified exemption and requires the consideration of a public interest test. In this case we have considered that the public interest favours non-disclosure. This is because the disclosure of this information would likely prejudice the commercial interests of both potential suppliers as third parties and the Council. It is in the public interest that the Council is able to undertake contract negotiations without such prejudice. In considering this public interest test we have followed guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office. Such guidance can be accessed through their website at the following link; http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/freedom_of_information/detailed_specialist_guides/awareness_guidance_3_public_interest_test.pdf

We have also redacted and withheld the signatories page of the contract i.e. page 33, due to the signatures on the page being the personal data of the individuals who have signed the contract. This information has been exempted under Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, 'Personal information'.

Section 40 states;

(1) Any information to which a request for information relates is exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject.

(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if-

(a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall within subsection (1), and

(b) either the first or the second condition below is satisfied.

(3) The first condition is-

(a) in a case where the information falls within any of paragraphs (a) to (d) of the definition of "data" in section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998, that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene-

(i) any of the data protection principles, or

(ii) section 10 of that Act (right to prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress), and

(b) in any other case, that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene any of the data protection principles if the exemptions in section 33A(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (which relate to manual data held by public authorities) were disregarded.

(4) The second condition is that by virtue of any provision of Part IV of the Data Protection Act 1998 the information is exempt from section 7(1)(c) of that Act (data subject's right of access to personal data).

(5) The duty to confirm or deny-

(a) does not arise in relation to information which is (or if it were held by the public authority would be) exempt information by virtue of subsection (1), and

(b) does not arise in relation to other information if or to the extent that either-

(i) the giving to a member of the public of the confirmation or denial that would have to be given to comply with section 1(1)(a) would (apart from this Act) contravene any of the data protection principles or section 10 of the Data Protection Act 1998 or would do so if the exemptions in section 33A(1) of that Act were disregarded, or

(ii) by virtue of any provision of Part IV of the Data Protection Act 1998 the information is exempt from section 7(1)(a) of that Act (data subject's right to be informed whether personal data being processed).

(6) In determining for the purposes of this section whether anything done before 24th October 2007 would contravene any of the data protection principles, the exemptions in Part III of Schedule 8 to the Data Protection Act 1998 shall be disregarded.

(7) In this section-

"the data protection principles" means the principles set out in Part I of Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998, as read subject to Part II of that Schedule and section 27(1) of that Act;

"data subject" has the same meaning as in section 1(1) of that Act;

"personal data" has the same meaning as in section 1(1) of that Act.”

This acts as an exemption notice. We have applied this exemption as Subsection (2) because the requested information relates to personal data where the requester is not the data subject. We confirm that the information is held. This is an absolute exemption and therefore does not require the balancing of the public interests. For further information on defining personal data please refer to the document at the following link and in particular to the flowchart beginning on page 5:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/personal_data_flowchart_v1_with_preface001.pdf

We hope that you find this review satisfactory. You have a further right of appeal against these decisions, which you can do so in writing, stating your reasons to the regulating body, the Information Commissioner's Office (http://www.ico.gov.uk/ or 08456 30 60 60 or Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF).

Yours sincerely

Mark Pybus
Corporate Information Governance Officer

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