ACPO contracts 2009/10

Dear Home Office,

Please supply a list of all funding given to ACPO for the financial
year 2009/10. A similar table to
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...
would be a sufficient level of detail for this element of the
request.

In relation to each item of funding, please supply a copy of any
contracts or other agreements or documents detailing precisely what
the funding is for. If retrieving all of this information would
breach the cost limit, then please do this for as many of the items
of funding as you can within the limit, starting with the highest
amount, then the next highest and so on.

Yours faithfully,

Ganesh Sittampalam

Dear FOI Responses,

Thanks for your email stating that you are extending the deadline
for response to carry out a public interest test.

Under s17(1) and (2), you are obliged to provide a proper notice
specifying the exemption in question and explaining why the
exemption applies.

You have so far not specified which part of s43 you are relying on,
and it is certainly not obvious to me why it would apply at all. I
also find it hard to understand why, even if it might apply to some
of the information I have requested, it would apply to all of the
information.

I find the claim particularly puzzling as this information has been
published in respect of prior years in response to parliamentary
questions and my own requests and s43 has not been mentioned
before; and in respect of future years the government's new policy
on publishing contracts will likely result in the information
having to be published as well.

I therefore request that you provide a proper notice by 30th
December, which is the 20 working day deadline for complying with
my request.

Yours sincerely,

Ganesh Sittampalam

Dear Home Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Home Office's
handling of my FOI request 'ACPO contracts 2009/10'.

You have failed to provide either the information I have requested
or a proper refusal notice within 20 working days. I note your
letter claiming to extend the deadline for responding to carry out
a public interest test, but as stated in my previous email I
believe this falls well short of meeting the requirements of the
Act.

I also, on the basis of the evidence so far presented, do not
accept that s43 is engaged in respect of this information at all.
Has any commercial harm been done by the releases of this
information in respect to previous years? Even if s43 applies to
some parts of the contracts, why have you not provided the
remaining information - the list requested and the other parts of
the contracts - within the time limit?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ac...

Yours faithfully,

Ganesh Sittampalam

Dear Home Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Home Office's
handling of my FOI request 'ACPO contracts 2009/10'.

I have the following complaints:

(1)

Your claim of s12 is over 10 months late. Please see these recent
Tribunal cases for the correct approach in such situations:

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres...

http://www.informationtribunal.gov.uk/DB...(s.12)_EA-2010-0141.pdf

(2)

Your claim of s12 doesn't include any explanation of the details of
your estimate. Nor does it provide any s16 "advice and assistance"
as to how I might narrow my request.

(3)

You appear to have ignored the explicit statement in my request
where I stated "If retrieving all of this information would breach
the cost limit, then please do this for as many of the items of
funding as you can within the limit, starting with the highest
amount, then the next highest and so on."

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ac...

Yours faithfully,

Ganesh Sittampalam

Dear Mr Wheeler,

Thank you for your email.

Please can you give a full explanation of why s24, 31 and 38 apply
to the information I have requested, as required by s17(1)(c) of
the FOI Act? s17(1)(b) also requires you specify particular
subsections as appropriate.

I find the use of these exemptions surprising given that you have
previously released contracts of this nature to me without any
mention of these exemptions. I do not believe that they apply at
all.

I find it particularly hard to believe that they can possibly apply
to all the information I have requested. Please therefore release
all the information that is not covered by an exemption
immediately.

I'm also not clear on the relevance of your reference to a 20
working day period given that this request is now nearly 18 months
old. As you may be aware, the ICO guidance on considering the
public interest test specifies an absolute maximum of 40 working
days from the date of the request for doing this, a period that has
long since elapsed. Your failure to cite the exemptions at all
until now is also a further breach of the Act.

As the ICO is actively engaged with this request, I am not sure if
they will expect the Home Office to carry out yet another internal
review, but if they do then please consider this email as a request
for that review on the grounds detailed above, and the fact that I
still have not received the requested information after this very
long delay.

Yours sincerely,

Ganesh Sittampalam

Your reference: CR22461

Dear Mr Wheeler,

Thank you for your email.

Please can you give a full explanation of why s24, 31 and 38 apply
to the information I have requested, as required by s17(1)(c) of
the FOI Act? s17(1)(b) also requires you specify particular
subsections as appropriate.

I find the use of these exemptions surprising given that you have
previously released contracts of this nature to me without any
mention of these exemptions. I do not believe that they apply at
all.

I find it particularly hard to believe that they can possibly apply
to all the information I have requested. Please therefore release
all the information that is not covered by an exemption
immediately.

I'm also not clear on the relevance of your reference to a 20
working day period given that this request is now nearly 18 months
old. As you may be aware, the ICO guidance on considering the
public interest test specifies an absolute maximum of 40 working
days from the date of the request for doing this, a period that has
long since elapsed. Your failure to cite the exemptions at all
until now is also a further breach of the Act.

As the ICO is actively engaged with this request, I am not sure if
they will expect the Home Office to carry out yet another internal
review, but if they do then please consider this email as a request
for that review on the grounds detailed above, and the fact that I
still have not received the requested information after this very
long delay.

Yours sincerely,

Ganesh Sittampalam