SOLICITOR TO THE COUNCIL & CORPORATE LEGAL TEAM

MARK HEATH, LLB Solicitor, Dip.LG

Southampton City Council

Civic Centre

Southampton SO14 7LT

Direct Dial: 023 8083 2676 Fax: 023 8083 2308

Email: [email address] Our ref: JA/FOI/0809/465

Please ask for: Mrs J Austin Date: 27^th April 2009

Mr J Goodwin

[email address]

Dear Mr Goodwin

Freedom of Information Request

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request received on 26^th March. In your request, you have requested the following information

1) How many Southampton City Council employees have the power to

authorise the use of Ripa, and what grade are they?

2) How many times have Ripa powers been used in the last 5 years?

On what dates were the requests made and by whom?

3) For what purposes was Ripa used, what type of investigation was

being made? What was the motivation for using Ripa? What were the

outcomes of the Ripa requests?

1) The Council currently has 20 officers designated as Authorising Officers. As per the 2003 regulations, only the Assistant Chief Officer, Assistant Head of Service, Service Manager or equivalent are designated Authorising Officers for the Council.

2) The Council only retains information regarding authorisations for three financial years. For those years I can confirm the following.

i) 2006/7: A total of 26 instances of directed surveillance

ii) 2007/8: A total of 31 instances of directed surveillance.

iii) 2008/9: A total of 34 instances of directed surveillance.

For the remainder of the requested information, please see the attached sheet. Please note that we have not supplied details of the outcomes of the instances of directed surveillance. Although we maintain centralised records of all RIPA authorisations, records of outcomes will only be available from the individual departments carrying out each investigation. Locating, retrieving and extracting the information required to provide a full answer to your question concerning outcomes seems very likely to exceed the £450 cost limit which the Government has set for dealing with Freedom of Information requests. The best way we can help you is therefore to ask you to try and narrow down the information you have requested in this regard. You could for example, restrict your authorisations made by one or more specific departments, rather than across the Council, or restrict your request to a shorter time period, e.g six months to a year.

Please let me know if you do require any further information on this point. Any modification to your request will be treated as a new request for information.

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27^th April 2009

Mr J Goodwin

I am obliged to inform you that all material supplied to you including, layout, presentation, text, logos, icons, photos, and all material is copyright © Southampton City Council (date documents produced), unless otherwise stated. Please note that the Council cannot guarantee the accuracy of information supplied.

Use of any material supplied in response to your Freedom of Information request including reproduction or transmission in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored on any retrieval system of any nature of any material contained in these pages may not be made without permission. No use of any material is authorised without the express written permission of the Solicitor to the Council. The supply of documents does not give you an automatic right to re-use the documents in a way that would infringe copyright.

If you have any complaints in respect of your information request, please write to the Complaints Officer:

Corporate Complaints Officer

Corporate Policy and Performance Division

Southampton City Council

Civic Centre

Southampton SO14 7LT

Alternatively you can telephone 023 8083 3050. If your complaint is not resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision.

The Information Commissioner's Office can be contacted by way of letter addressed to:

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Alternatively you can telephone: 01625 545 700

Please contact me again if you require any further assistance on this matter and I will do my best to provide relevant help and advice.

Yours sincerely,

Janice Austin

Information Compliance Officer

for Solicitor to the Council

If you would like this letter sent to you in another format or language, please contact the number at the top of this letter.

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