Bogus completion of a mystery E-Form after an email request for information

Dear Ms Hutchinson

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REF No: 343335

Thank you for your information request, received on 18 July.

Due to technical issues with sending requests to whatdotheyknow.com, you
have not received the response to your request until now.

However, the council did respond to you on 30 July (within the compliance
period) and the relevant emails are attached. In case there is any
problem opening these attachments, I also provide the information again as
part of this email.

Please accept my apologies for the delay in receiving in this information
and any inconvenience this may have caused.

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Dear Ms Hutchinson

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REF No: 343335

Thank you for your information request, received on 18 July.

You requested the following information:

Please could you tell me what the Freedom of Information Department at the
Council do with the statistics on an "E-Form", relating to replies to
queries about blindness, health, such as cancer and HIV, etc that are
obtained or written on behalf of customers who make an enquiry, albeit by
a straightforward "Dear Sirs" email to an address given by the Council and
who sees these "E-Forms" after they are allegedly completed?

Also, I would like to know why an enquiry I made, which was given number
by the Council FOIA Department, alleges that I had completed an E-Form,
which I did not, giving replies to personal questions, apparently on my
behalf, not knowing whether they be true or false. How many people have
had this form allegedly completed for them in the last 12 months, please?

There are three ways an FOI request is usually received into the council.

1) The requester fills in an external e-form, which sends a request to the
FOIA inbox.

[1]http://www.islington.gov.uk/Council/coun...

2) The requester writes to the [Islington Borough Council request email] inbox. A member of
our team then enters the details into an internal eform, which contains
the same basic information and a reference to who logged the request.

3) A written FOI request may have been received on paper or via email to
any council department, who will either pass it to the
[Islington Borough Council request email] inbox or fill in the internal form.

All requests require a form to be filled out in order to create a unique
identifier for each request and capture the contact details for the
requester in order to send out a response.

Once a form is completed it is passed to the relevant service area to
collate the information and respond directly to the requester. The form
is viewed by the Freedom of Information team and those officers in service
areas required to locate the information and/or to send out the request.

In terms of the equalities or health related information on the form, it
is captured on the form as standard for most council services. The
equalities fields on the eform are not mandatory and customers can opt out
of entering this information.

The Freedom of Information Act is applicant blind and we cannot allow any
details about the requester to influence the information we disclose,
unless there is a specific accessibility requirement to view the
information.

The specific case you refer was an 'external' eform (see point 1 above)
filled in by a member of staff instead of an 'internal' form. This is an
error we have now rectified. I will now remove the instances of this from
our records. I apologise for any inconvenience or distress this may have
caused.

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If you have a complaint about the handling of this information request,
please contact: Jeremy Tuck, Chief Information Officer, Corporate
Resources, 60 Highbury New Park, London, N5 2DJ. Email:
[email address]

Further information is also available from the Information Commissioner's
Office, at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Telephone: 01625 545 700. Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

Kit Good
Technology, Records and Information Manager
Technology Solutions Group
Corporate Resources
London Borough of Islington
60 Highbury New Park, N5 2DJ
Tel: 020 7527 1789

[2]http://www.islington.gov.uk

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References

Visible links
1. http://www.islington.gov.uk/Council/coun...
2. http://www.islington.gov.uk/
3. http://www.islington.gov.uk/freedomofinf...
4. mailto:[Islington Borough Council request email]
5. http://www.islington.gov.uk/

ISLINGTON COUNCIL: TECHNICAL ISSUE WITH RESPONDING TO WHATDOTHEYKNOW.COM
REQUESTS

A technical issue has been identified involving emails been sent by
Islington Council to whatdotheyknow.com. This occurred between April
and early August 2010. The emails were being sent successfully from the
council's network, but a technical setting on our email servers resulted
in the emails not being accepted by the whatdotheyknow.com site.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to these
requests. All the FOI requests received from whatdotheyknow.com during
this period are being re-checked and processed as necessary.

The council supports the objectives and ethos of the whatdotheyknow.com
site. [WhatDoTheyKnow contact email] has been very helpful and we have worked
closely with them to resolve this issue.

Once again I offer my apologies for the delay you have experienced in
receiving the information requested from the council.

Yours sincerely

Kit Good
Technology, Records and Information Manager
Technology Solutions Group
Corporate Resources
London Borough of Islington
60 Highbury New Park, N5 2DJ
Tel: 020 7527 1789

http://www.islington.gov.uk

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