Actual/ Estimated Budget Figures

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Dear Mr Boswell

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I have logged this for you now, your case reference number is 1497783

Kind regards

David

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Somerset Direct
Somerset County Council
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Dear Steve Boswell

Thank you for your request made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
to Somerset County Council.

We are currently dealing with your request, and will be in touch shortly
concerning disclosure of the information you have requested.

At this stage however, I would like to point out that your request seems
to be sufficiently complex and large to warrant a possible charge.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 states that public bodies may
apply charges to provide information to the public; this is found in the
Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees)
Regulations 2004, SI 2004 / 3244 (`the Fees Regulations').

If Somerset County Council makes a reasonable estimate that it will spend
more than £450 on staff time in complying with a request, then charges
will be applied; this figure is based on an agreed national hourly rate of
£25 currently equating to 18 hours or more.  This charge is
calculated in accordance with section 13 of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 and the Freedom of Information Fees Regulations.

In dealing with your FOI request, Council staff will initially assess the
number of hours needed to respond to this, and if this is over the 18 hour
limit then I will contact you again as soon as possible. If at this stage
you would like to narrow or redefine the scope of your request, the
Council will re-assess the time needed to respond to this.

If you would like to phone me to discuss your request, my direct line is
01823 355584

Yours sincerely

Business Development Team - Resources

Tel: 01823 355584,

Email: [email address]

Business Development - Resources, Somerset County Council, County Hall,
Taunton, TA1 4DY

URL: [1]www.somerset.gov.uk

FOI Disclosure Log URL:
[2]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/irj/public/co...

This communication is intended solely for the person (s) or organisation
to whom it is addressed. It may
contain privileged and confidential information and if you are not the
intended recipient (s), you must not
copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. If you have
received this e-mail in error please notify
the sender and copy the message to [email address]

Individuals are advised that by replying to, or sending an e-mail message
to Somerset County Council, you
accept that you have no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy.

In line with the Surveillance and Monitoring Policy, any e-mail messages
(and attachments) transmitted over
the Councilâ**s network may be subject to scrutiny.

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/www.somerset.gov.uk
2. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/irj/public/co...

Dear Mr Boswell

I am writing in respect of your recent request for information from
Somerset County Council, which has been dealt with under the provisions of
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I can confirm that we hold some of the information that you are seeking:

In response to your original request dated 24 February 2011 which stated:

"Please provide a table, clearly showing the actual expenditure for the
last 5 years and the budgeted/estimated expenditure for the next 5 years
for every area of the council budget. Provide this at a detail level that
clearly shows where specific savings have been or are to be made and where
costs have or are expected to rise.

Please also provide either the detail reports of how these savings are to
be made and costs are expected to rise or links to the relevant reports on
the somerset.gov.uk website."

The information is provided in the following formats:

A Word file containing an explanation of savings approved in the past
(commencing 2005/06) together with links to Council papers. It also
includes details of the current 3-year MTFP covering the period 2011/12 to
2013/14.

<<FOI Act - Ref 1497783 - 896.doc>>

An Excel file at service level showing actual costs against budget for the
period 2005/06 to 2009/10.

<<Copy of Actuals v Budgets 5 years - 1497783 ref 896.xls>>

In response to your clarification email dated 25 February 2011, which
stated:

"For the actuals you already provide detailed spending reports by month in
CSV for any figure over £500 in your 'opendata' area of the SCC website
with the following field headings.

Body

Company Code

Service Area Org

Service Division Org

Responsible Unit

Expense Type

Detailed Expense Typ

Expense Code

Payment Date

Transaction Number

Amount

Capital / Revenue

Supplier Name

You started doing that in January, I'm interested in going back further
than December 2010 and forward into the future.

If you could include all figures (not just over £500) and group and
total that by "Year, Service Division Org, Expense Code" that would be
fine. Obviously your data goes back at least 7 years for statutory
purposes, if it's quicker to dump all the data than filter down to 5 years
that will be fine too. If you have less than 5 years in live data and the
rest is in archives, I'm happy to just have the live data.

I'm also happy to have the detailed data and summarise it myself if that
is easier/faster.

For the estimated costs, I'd like it at the same detail level ie

Year

Service Area Org

Service Division Org

Expense Type

Detailed Expense Type

Expense Code

Amount

But if you only have forward projections for "Service Division Org" or
"Service Area Org" that will have to do. Obviously the more detail the
better.

Dump all the data to CSV and I can do the manipulation myself."

Our response:

The transactional data published in the over £500 monthly reports
relates to payments to suppliers only and does not include payroll
payments to staff. Since April 2009 we have had a new financial system
(SAP), therefore access to the transactions prior to that time (held on
CedAr) is problematic due to archiving and the need to develop a program
to extract the necessary information.

The FOIA states that public bodies may apply charges in order to provide
information to the public; this is found in the Freedom of Information and
Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, SI 2004 /
3244 (`the Fees Regulations'). If a public body spends more than £450
on staff time in complying with a request, then charges may be applied;
this figure is based on an hourly rate of £25 over 18 hours.

The Council has estimated that it will take 500 hours to meet your
request, which comes to £12,500.  This charge has been calculated in
accordance with section 13 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the
Freedom of Information Fees Regulations.

This time estimate is in relation to the non-archived SAP data (which
appears to be acceptable), there are 20 months which have not been
published. Based on our assessment of time to produce the monthly reports
in a way that accords with Data Protection responsibilities, the cost
would be:-

25 hours x 20 months x £25/hour = £12,500.

I would like to emphasise that the costs are not for redacting
information, rather it is checking the resulting report and ensuring it is
complete and compliant with the Data Protection Act.

As a result I attach a Fees Notice, but I am happy to discuss this with
you.

<<Fees Notice FOI 1497783 ref 896.doc>>

If you are not satisfied with the way in which your request has been dealt
with, or the information you have received, you can ask for an internal
review of our decision.

Please send your request to:

Information Governance Team, Client Services

Resources Directorate, A2 West, County Hall, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 4DY

or email [1]information [email address]

Please remember to quote the reference number 1497783 in any future
communications.

An internal review will then be carried out and we will write to you with
the results of our investigation. If you are not content with the outcome
of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information
Commissioner's Office ([2]www.ico.gov.uk) for an appeal:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113

Yours sincerely,

Communications Team

Tel: 01823 355584,

Email: [3][email address]

Post: Communications Team, Somerset County Council, County Hall, Taunton,
TA1 4DY

Web URL: [4]www.somerset.gov.uk

FOI Disclosure Log URL:
[5]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/irj/public/co...

This communication is intended solely for the person (s) or organisation
to whom it is addressed. It may
contain privileged and confidential information and if you are not the
intended recipient (s), you must not
copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. If you have
received this e-mail in error please notify
the sender and copy the message to [email address]

Individuals are advised that by replying to, or sending an e-mail message
to Somerset County Council, you
accept that you have no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy.

In line with the Surveillance and Monitoring Policy, any e-mail messages
(and attachments) transmitted over
the Councilâ**s network may be subject to scrutiny.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:information [email address]
2. file://www.ico.gov.uk
3. mailto:[email address]
4. file://www.somerset.gov.uk
5. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/irj/public/co...