Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide

1. the names and ranks/grades of all Greater London Authority
employees who are Common Purpose "graduates".

2. Please detail total expenditure by the Greater London Authority
on Common Purpose courses for each of the following years:

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

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

John Walker

Dear John Walker

Thank you for your request for information which we received on 19th May 2008.

You asked for:

1. The names and ranks/grades of all Greater London Authority
employees who are Common Purpose "graduates".

2. Please detail total expenditure by the Greater London Authority on
Common Purpose courses for each of the following years:

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

The GLA does not hold this information. We do not at present have any Graduate schemes in place and therefore the GLA does not hold this information.

Yours Sincerely

Dianne Huff
Recruitment Administrator
HR

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...

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide

1. the names and ranks/grades of all Greater London Authority
employees who are Common Purpose "graduates".

2. Please detail total expenditure by the Greater London Authority on
Common Purpose courses for each of the following years:

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

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

John Walker

show quoted sections

GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY
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Dear Mayor of London,

You say "The GLA does not hold this information. We do not at
present have any Graduate schemes in place and therefore the GLA
does not hold this information."

I don't follow the logic of this. Even if you do not have any
Graduate Schemes in place at present, how does that affect your
ability to provide information about Graduate Schemes in the past?

Please try harder. Go on, have another go.

Yours sincerely,

Joh Walker

Dear Mayor of London,

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

Yours sincerely,

John Walker

Dear Mr Walker,

Thank you for your email dated 13 June 2008. Upon review of your request we have found expenditure within our central Finance system for two transactions with Common Purpose. Please accept my apologies for the error within my previous response and the delay in communicating this information to you. We originally referred to the central training records which did not contain this information.

Our response to your request is as follows:

1. The names and ranks/grades of all Greater London Authority
employees who are Common Purpose "graduates".

Two employees have attended programmes run by Common Purpose. The employees were Grades 9 and 13.

2. Please detail total expenditure by the Greater London Authority on Common Purpose courses for each of the following years:

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

• 2006 - £4,641.25
• 2007 - £4,641.25

Some of the information you requested is being withheld as it falls under the exemption in section 40 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

Agnieszka Lenton
Learning and Development Manager

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.

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 Mayor of London,

You say "The GLA does not hold this information. We do not at
present have any Graduate schemes in place and therefore the GLA
does not hold this information. "

I don't follow the logic of this. Even if you do not have any
Graduate Schemes in place at present, how does that affect your
ability to provide information about Graduate Schemes in the past?

Please try harder. Go on, have another go.

Yours sincerely,

Joh Walker

show quoted sections

GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EMAIL NOTICE:
The information in this email may contain confidential or privileged materials.
Please read the full email notice at http://www.london.gov.uk/email-notice.jsp
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mayor of London,

Thank you for the reply.

You say "Two employees have attended programmes run by Common
Purpose. The employees were Grades 9 and 13."

1. Please supply the names of these two people.

2. Which programmes run by Common Purpose did they attend?

3.Are they Common Purpose "graduates"

Yours sincerely,

John Walker

From: [FOI #556 email]
To: [Greater London Authority request email]
Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request - Common Purpose training,
graduates and expenditure

The Mayor would like to thank you for your interest in his work and he is
keen to answer your query as fully as possible. As you will appreciate, he
has received a very large amount of correspondence from Londoners since
the election and it is proving quite challenging to respond as quickly as
we would like.

Please note that non Greater London Authority (GLA) related queries will
be referred to the appropriate functional body for them to reply e.g.
transport related queries will be referred to Transport for London (TfL).

However, the Mayor is committed to responding to all appropriate
correspondence and everything is being done to reply to your query as
quickly as possible.

This is an automated message and therefore does not require any response.

Dear Mr Walker,

Thank you for your email dated 3 July 2008 requesting further information about two of our employees who have attended Common Purpose training courses.

Our response to your request is as follows:

1. Please supply the names of these two people.

As previously responded by the GLA in an email of 3 July 2008, this information is exempt under s.40 Personal Information of the Act. Please see annex to our previous response for further detail.

2. Which programmes run by Common Purpose did they attend?

Both employees attended the Common Purpose Matrix Programme.

3. Are they Common Purpose "graduates"?

Both employees can be considered Common Purpose 'graduates' in that they have completed one of the programmes run by Common Purpose.

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... .

Dear Mayor of London,

Thank you for the reply.

You say "Two employees have attended programmes run by Common
Purpose. The employees were Grades 9 and 13."

1. Please supply the names of these two people.

2. Which programmes run by Common Purpose did they attend?

3.Are they Common Purpose "graduates"

Yours sincerely,

John Walker

show quoted sections

GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EMAIL NOTICE:
The information in this email may contain confidential or privileged materials.
Please read the full email notice at http://www.london.gov.uk/email-notice.jsp
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