Cease & Desist Letters

Dear W King

Thank you for your request for information.

Kent County Council's Legal team confirm that they have received one
"cease & desist" letter recently from a user of the whatdotheyknow.com
website.

It is possible that similar letters have been received by other council
departments, but as there is no central log of all incoming
communications, there is no way of ascertaining this aside from contacting
every one of the hundreds of operational unit managers within each of the
five KCC Directorates and asking them to check their records. This process
would certainly exceed the appropriate limit of £450 (18 hours @ £25 per
hour), so under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, we are not
obliged to deal with your request.

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied
with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints
process; details can be found at this link
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...
on our website. Please quote reference FOI/09/1098.

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should
you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the
Information Commissioner*s website
[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Best regards

Caroline Dodge
Corporate Access to Information Coordinator, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room 1.94, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 221652 - Fax: 01622 694383
[3]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...

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Dear W King

Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to you. This was an
oversight on my part.

Although the "cease and desist" letter referred to in my response was sent
to us by a user of the whatdotheyknow website, it was not transmitted to
Kent County Council via the whatdotheyknow website. Nor would it have been
appropriate to do this. The whatdotheyknow website facilitates the sending
of requests for information falling under the scope of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 to public authorities such as KCC and is not for
other types of correspondence or communication. However, had the sender
wanted the cease and desist letter to be in the public domain, I have no
doubt that they would have sent it to KCC via the whatdotheyknow website
regardless as to whether this was appropriate or not. The fact they didn't
would suggest they wanted the contents to remain confidential therefore
the Council is relying on section 41 (information provided in confidence)
of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to withhold details of the contents
of the letter. In any event, the Act does not entitle you to copies of
documents, just the information contained therein.

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied
with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints
process; details can be found at this link
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...
on our website. Please quote reference FOI/09/1098.

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should
you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the
Information Commissioner's website
[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Best regards

Caroline Dodge
Corporate Access to Information Coordinator, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room B.48, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 221652 - Fax: 01622 696075
[3]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...

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