Common Purpose expenditure and invoices

Dear Mr Maclean,

Thank you for your email dated 20 June.

Our response to your request is as follows:

1. Please detail total expenditure by the Greater London Authority on Common Purpose courses for each of the years since establishment of the GLA, including 2008 to date.

2. Please also supply a copy of the invoice for each Common Purpose course paid for by this organisation.

Please see the attached invoices which are also the total sum of expenditure on Common Purpose courses for each year of the GLA's establishment to date.

Some of the information you requested is being withheld as it falls under the exemption in section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act. The below annex sets out the exemption in full. It also includes a schedule of the information withheld.

If you have any further questions relating to this matter, please contact me, ensuring that you quote the reference at the top of this letter.

Yours

Karen Frost
Learning and Development Officer
Human Resources Group

If you are unhappy with the way the GLA has handled your request, you may complain using the GLA's comments and complaints procedure, available at http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/comments/in... .

Annexe 1

Exceptions that apply and reasoning

s.40 Personal Information

(1) Any information to which a request for information relates is exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject.

(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if -
(b) either the first or the second condition below is satisfied.

(3) The first condition is -
(a) in a case where the information falls within any of the paragraphs (a) to (d) of the definition of "data" in section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998, that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene -
i. any of the data protection principles

Information this applies to

The names of GLA employees who have completed a Common Purpose programme.
Financial information relating to Common Purpose

How the exception applies to this information

s.40 Personal Information
This information constitutes personal data which is defined by s.1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 to mean data which relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data.
It is considered that disclosure of this information would contravene the first data protection principle which states that "Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless-
(a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and
(b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met."

It is considered that none of the conditions to allow the processing of the information apply in this case as the subjects have not consented to the use of their data for an alternative purpose (namely disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act). It is therefore considered that this would not be a fair and lawful use of the data.

Public interest test

This exemption is an absolute exemption and therefore does not require a public interest test to be carried out.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please detail total expenditure by the Greater London Authority on
Common Purpose courses for each of the years since establishment of
the GLA, including 2008 to date.

Please also supply a copy of the invoice for each Common Purpose
course paid for by this organisation.

By "Common Purpose", I mean the training organisation of that name:
http://www.commonpurpose.org/home.aspx

Yours faithfully,

Robert MacLean

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GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY
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