Barrier Busting

Harold Callahan made this Freedom of Information request to Department of Health

The request was refused by Department of Health.

From: Harold Callahan

22 August 2011

Dear Department of Health,

I am very interested in the impact of the Barrier Busting website.
See below for link.

(http://barrierbusting.communities.gov.uk/)

I would like to know the following information about the
involvement of the Department's officials in the Barrier Busting
programme.

1) Number of meetings attended by officials of the department about
the Barrier Busting programme.
2) Number of suggestions submitted to the site and directed to
officials of the department by officials of Department for
Communities and Local Government.
3) Number of suggestions submitted to the site that have been the
subject of submissions to ministers of the department, or referred
to in submissions to ministers of the department.

The time period of this request is from 1 May 2010 to the date of
this request.

Yours faithfully,

Harold Callahan

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Department of Health

23 August 2011

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If your enquiry is about a medical matter, please contact NHS Direct on
0845 4647 or visit [2]NHS Choices, or contact your GP surgery.

For general health information you may also find it helpful to refer to
[3]Directgov, the UK Government's Official information website, or the
Department of Health website's [4]Frequently Asked Questions.

Please note that the Department of Health does not process complaints
about the NHS or social services. If you wish to make a complaint about a
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please visit the '[5]Making a complaint' page on the Department's website.

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References

Visible links
1. Department's website
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/FAQ/index.htm
2. http://www.nhs.uk/
3. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm
4. http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/FAQ/index.htm
5. http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/ContactUs/Compla...

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Department of Health

16 September 2011

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Email Content stored in attached file 'Long_Email_Body_16_09_2011.html'.

 

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
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John Cross left an annotation ( 7 October 2011)

extract:
----------------------------
Our ref: DE00000639677

16 September 2011

Dear Mr Callahan,

Thank you for your email of 23 August to the Department of Health requesting, under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, information relating the Barrier Busting Programme. Your email has been passed to me for reply.

You specifically ask for the:

“1) Number of meetings attended by officials of the department about the Barrier Busting programme.

2) Number of suggestions submitted to the site and directed to officials of the department by officials of Department for Communities and Local Government.

3) Number of suggestions submitted to the site that have been the subject of submissions to ministers of the department, or referred to in submissions to ministers of the department.

The time period of this request is from 1 May 2010 to the date of this request.”

The Department may hold some information relating to your request.

However, we estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit. 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 three and a half working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

It may be useful to explain that the ‘Barrier Busting’ programme is not the responsibility of one policy team. Therefore, in order to comply with your request, it would be necessary to contact some 200 teams within the Department to check their records. These searches alone to establish what information is held would certainly exceed the cost limit set out in Section 12 of the Act. Therefore, the Department is unable to process your request any further at this stage.

If you were to submit a refined request with a narrower scope, for example by specifying a particular policy team in the Department or to focus the request within a shorter time-frame, it may be that we could comply with the request within the appropriate limit, but I cannot guarantee that this will be the case. The Department cannot also guarantee that other exemptions from the FOI Act or data protection principles will not apply to any information requested.

The Department does not hold information on number of suggestions submitted to the Barrier Busting website. It may be useful to know that the Department for Communities and Local Government is developing this programme. Therefore, you may wish to contact them for the information you request. Contact details can be found on their website at: http://www.communities.gov.uk/corporate/...

If you have any queries about this response, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to:

Head of the Freedom of Information Team

Department of Health

Room 317

Richmond House

79 Whitehall

London

SW1A 2NS
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