Atos Assessment Centres locations,accessibility & general details

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been received at the DWP Central FoI Team.

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[1]http://www.dwp.gov.uk/freedom-of-informa...

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References

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Dear Comrade Balinksy,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated 16 August 2011 that was received by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Adelphi and forwarded for response by the DWP Commercial Management of Medical Services Freedom of Information Officer on the 17 August.

In your email you asked to be provided with information answering the following questions:-

Please supply details of all assessment centres used by Atos for carrying out Work Capability Assessments.

Please include details of address, telephone numbers, fax, opening hours, whether there is parking available to claimants attending assessments by Atos, whether parking is free, whether there is disabled parking, which floor the assessment centre is on, whether there is a lift, whether the assessment centre is served by a bus service or is close to a train station, whether there is wheelchair access, toilet provision, changing places toilets, whether it is a DWP building, whether chairs have arms and whether there are refreshments available.

Also please indicate whether the information you supply can be shared via social networking, Blackberry messenger etc

In response to Qs 1 & 2 please find attached an excel spreadsheet detailing the majority of the information you require. If you are unable to open the spreadsheet we will, if you provide your postal address, supply a hard copy to you. If that is needed please send the address direct to us so that your personal address is not published on the internet.

You will see on the spreadsheet that there are a minority of questions including toilet provision and changing facilities that the Department does not hold a documented answer to.

The provision of responses to these questions would involve contacting all of the assessment centres listed. That along with the work already undertaken to respond to this request would exceed the appropriate limit of £600. The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for central Government it is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3½ working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act the Department is not obliged to comply with your request to this extent. If you were to make a new request for a more narrow category of information, perhaps regarding a few of the assessment centres it may be that we could comply with that request within the appropriate limit, although we cannot guarantee that this will be the case.

In reply to Q 3 the information supplied is available to the public and is not protected by copyright.
If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely,

DWP Central FoI Team

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