Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide

1. the names and ranks/grades of all Devon County Council employees
who are Common Purpose "graduates".

2. Please detail total expenditure by Devon County Council on
Common Purpose courses for each of the following years:

2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 to date.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

John Walker

Your application for Freedom of Information has been received.

Your application reference is 101000245295

Chief Executive's Directorate

Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall
Topsham Road
Exeter
EX2 4QD

Tel: 01392 384678
Email: [Devon County Council request email]
Fax: 01392 383165

May 2008

Dear John

Freedom of Information Request: 101000245295

I am in receipt of your request dated 19th May for information held by
Devon County Council about the names and rank of DCC employees who are
common purpose and the expenditure of common purpose courses.

You are entitled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to be
informed whether or not the information you have requested is held by
Devon County Council and if so to be given access to that information
within 20 working days (subject to any exemptions).

You will receive a response to your request by 17th June

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Team

Dear John,

We are in the process of preparing an answer for you, to your question
about common purpose training, graduates and expenditure.

To help me, please could you define what you mean by the phrase common
purpose graduates? Would you simply mean any employee who is a degree
level graduate?

Linked in with this, please could define further the phrase common
purpose training? Putting aside graduate and postgraduate level
studies, I'd define our current training activity as either leading to a
qualification (such as an NVQ) or what is often called in-service
training not leading to a qualification, such as something like absence
management.

We don't currently have much information that would help you with your
first question. I do have information concerning Social Work
Qualifications and Accountancy Qualifications that would help answer the
second question, and have obtained some listings of other courses
leading to a qualification, for which staff have obtained some financial
sponsorship.

Hope to hear from you.

Yours sincerely,

Malcolm Knox
Devon Finance Services
Room AG25
(Devon County Council)
County Hall
Exeter
EX2 4QR

(phone) 01392 38 2355
(fax) 01392 38 2363
(email) [email address]
Disclaimer: http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml

show quoted sections

Dear Malcolm Knox,

By Common Purpose, I mean the training organisation of that name:
http://www.commonpurpose.org/home.aspx By Common Purpose
"graduate", I refer to a specific class of person who has passed
the advanced Common Purpose courses.

Yours sincerely, John Walker

Dear Malcolm Knox,

I am still waiting for the courtesy of an answer to this FOI
request.

Yours sincerely,

John Walker

Dear John,

Thankyou for this information, which is very helpful. We will look
further and comeback to you as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Malcolm Knox
Devon Finance Services
Room AG25
(Devon County Council)
County Hall
Exeter
EX2 4QR

(phone) 01392 38 2355
(fax) 01392 38 2363
(email) [email address]

show quoted sections

Dear Malcolm Knox,

I am still waiting for the courtesy of an answer to this FOI
request. A response is well overdue.

Yours sincerely,

John Walker

Dear Mr Walker,

Many apologies for the delay in responding to you. You requested
information about Common Purpose Graduates. I have asked several senior
staff who have had a long term involvement in staff development and
training, and we cannot find any evidence of any staff doing such a
training programme with any form of local authority sponsorship. It is
always possible that an individual employee might have done such
training in their own time and their own expense. I have however
reviewed a lot of recent training data, but find no reference at all to
training of this sort.

Your right to complain

If for any reason you are not satisfied with how your request has been
handled, please write to Devon County Council's Freedom of Information
Office, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, EX2 4QJ or complete the
on-line complaint form that can be found at www.devon.gov.uk. If your
complaint is not resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the
right to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Re-use of information

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your
own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and
for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example
commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright
holder. Most documents supplied by Devon County Council will have been
produced by local officials and will be our copyright. If you would like
to re-use any of the information which has been supplied to you, please
contact us. Information you receive which is not subject to our
copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or
organisation, from which the information originated. You must ensure
that you gain their permission before reproducing any information.

Yours sincerely,

Malcolm Knox

Disclaimer: http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml