Dear Sir or Madam,

Can I please have the brief issued to consultants for the work to
be conducted in connection with the Gateway Review of the parks and
open spaces function of Wirral Council being
undertaken in 2009

Yours faithfully,

Harry Nickson

Good Afternoon,
Thank you for your request for information detailed below.
Please refer to the link here which is from the Cabinet report entitled
"Parks and Countryside Gateway Review" of 26th June 2008, which sets out
the purpose of the review.
http://wir06metrognome.admin.ad.wirral.g...
126&RD=Minutes&DF=26/06/2008&A=0&R=0#96

The Council is unable to issue a copy of the brief at this time as it
forms part of the tender document. The information relating to the
review will become public when the consultants' findings are reported to
the Council's Cabinet. The exemptions of the freedom of Information
legislation that we are relying on are Sections 22, (Information
intended for future publication) and Section 43, (Commercial Interests;
The Council believes that release of the information is likely to
prejudice the commercial interests of any person. (A person may be an
individual, a company, the public authority itself or any other legal
entity.)

I hope you find this information of use
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin
Information Manager
Wirral Council

Sent: 08 June 2009 07:26
To: InfoMgr, FinDMT
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Brief for Gateway Review of
Parks

Dear Sir or Madam,

Can I please have the brief issued to consultants for the work to
be conducted in connection with the Gateway Review of the parks and
open spaces function of Wirral Council being undertaken in 2009

Yours faithfully,

Harry Nickson

show quoted sections

Dear Corrin, Jane,

Can you please let me know which consultants have been appointed or
a timetable of the tendering process if this is not yet complete.

Yours sincerely,

Harry Nickson

Good Afternoon,
Thank you for your further email below, the consultants appointed were
Capita Symonds. I hope you find this information of use.
Kind regards
Jane Corrin

show quoted sections

Dear Corrin, Jane

I would like an internal review of my request. I am dissatisfied
with the response for several reasons.

Section 22 - the brief is intended for future publication: Clearly,
as the tendering process is complete, the brief has already been
published and, I assume, circulated to interested parties on
request. I am an interested party.

Section 43 - commercial interests: The tender document may well
contain commercially sensitive information, but I didn't ask for
the tender document, just the brief. This should be extracted from
the tender document. I don't believe that I should have to ask for
this to be done.

Public interest - you don't even mention that both of these are
subject to a public interest test. You don't explain why it is in
the public's interest that they shouldn't know what the consultants
have been asked to do until it's too late to give an opinion. Is
there to be no public consultation in the review of parks?

I am also dissatisfied with the general handling of the request.
Can I suggest that you access the Good Practice Guidelines issued
by the ICO.

e.g. Guidance No. 1 - Refusal Notice
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

This offers guidance on what should be included in a refusal notice
and a checklist:
- Confirm or deny whether the requested information is held (unless
to do so would
constitute disclosure of exempt information).
- If the information is not going to be released, state which
qualified exemption applies.
- Explain why the exemption applies.
- Explain the public interest arguments that have been considered
when deciding upon
disclosure.
- Outline your authority’s appeals procedure (or clearly state that
no procedure exists if this is the case).
- Provide details of the right to appeal to the Information
Commissioner

Judging by other responses published online on the WhatDoTheyKnow
website, it looks like WMBC needs to attend to what it provides and
how this compares with good practice. As it is, I would say that it
risks the attention of the Information Commissioner.

Yours sincerely,

Harry Nickson

Dear Sir or Madam,

On the 25th June I wrote to request an internal review of Wirral
Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Brief for Gateway
Review of Parks'.

It is disappointing that I have had no further contact from the
Council. Is there a policy detailing the procedure to be followed
in the event of such requests?

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

Yours faithfully,

Harry Nickson