Communications with Local Government- Councils and Authorities

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30th April 2009

Case Reference Number IRQ0246164

Dear Mr John

Thank you for your email of 30 April 2009 in which you have made a request
for information to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Your request is being dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.  We will respond by 1 June 2009 which, taking into
account the two May bank holidays, is 20 working days from the day after
we received your request.

Yours sincerely

Iman Elmehdawy

Assistant Internal Compliance Manager

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http://www.ico.gov.uk or email: [email address]
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 700 Fax: 01625 524 510

References

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1. file:///tmp/rad86654_files/filelist.xml

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26th May 2009

Case Reference Number IRQ0246164

Dear Mr John

Further to our acknowledgement dated 30 April 2009 we are now in a
position to respond to your request for information.

You requested the following information on 30 April 2009:

“i) How many local authorities; District, Borough and Parish Council
have communicated with the Information Commissioner's Office concerning
the use of the 'www.whatdotheyknow.com'website and it's use for FOI
requests?

ii) Please identify those authorities from question i) above?

iii) Please provide a copy of any advice or guidance given to those
authorities from question ii) above in relation to FOI requests made via
the 'www.whatdotheyknow.com' website?”

I am sorry, but I am not able to provide you with the information you have
requested in relation to point i, ii, and iii. More detailed explanations
of why this is the case follow, but in brief, section 12 of the FOIA makes
clear that a public authority (such as the Information Commissioner’s
Office) is not obliged to comply with an FOIA request if the authority
estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the
‘appropriate limit'. The ‘appropriate limit’ for the Information
Commissioner’s Office, as determined in the ‘Freedom of Information
and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004’ is
£450. We have determined that £450 would equate to 18 hours work.

Whilst the information you have requested may sit within our electronic
and paper filing systems, these systems are not set up to easily provide
us with the type of information you have requested. By and large this is
not the sort of information we would need for our own day to day business
purposes.

The system allows us to search for the cases we have dealt with in a
number of different ways, such as by the unique reference number the case
was given, the name and address of the person who contacted us and the
name of any organisation or individual that has been complained about.
Following a search of our case management system I can confirm that the
“whatdotheyknow” website has not been a complained about party on our
systems. This means that there are no recorded complaints about this
website on our system. However, we may have received enquiries by local
authorities regarding the use of whatdotheyknow website to request
information. An Enquiry is logged in the name of the enquiring party
(local authority, central government, member of the public, etc...). The
system only allows us to search on limited fixed criteria of broad nature
in relation an enquiry.

In order to establish the nature of the enquiry, we will have to go into
each case individually. The number of enquiries we received from January
08 to May 09 is 10.934.If we assume it will take us 2 minutes to search
each enquiry (and it is certain that some searches would take much longer
than that), this means that we will need around 364 hours to search
through them (for the period between Jan 08 and May 09 only).This is well
in excess of the 18 hours which would accrue a charge of £450.  It is
for this reason, and in accordance with section 12 of the FOIA, that we
are not obliged to comply with your request for information.

 

In relation to point iii, we are aware that verbal advice was provided to
local authorities through our helpline but we do not hold recorded
information in relation to this advice. We may also have provided a
written advice in response to an enquiry. However, this information will
sit within our case management system and it will cost us above the 18
hours limit to comply with this request (as explained above). The Office
has not published any guidance/advice to local authorities in relation to
the use whatdotheyknow and has not produced an internal guidance as well
in relation to the same issue.

I hope the above is of assistance to you.

If you are dissatisfied with this response and wish to request a review of
our decision or make a complaint about how your request has been handled
you should write to the Internal Compliance Team at the address below or
e-mail [2][email address]

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40
working days of receipt by you of this response. Any such request
received after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the
Commissioner.

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right
of appeal to this office in our capacity as the statutory complaint
handler under the legislation.  To make such an application, please write
to the Case Reception Team, at the address below or visit the
‘Complaints’ section of our website to make a Freedom of Information
Act or Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

 

A copy of our review procedure is attached.

Yours sincerely

Iman Elmehdawy

Assistant Internal Compliance Manager

show quoted sections

http://www.ico.gov.uk or email: [email address]
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 700 Fax: 01625 524 510

References

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1. file:///tmp/rad72950_files/filelist.xml
2. mailto:[email address]

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27th May 2009

Case Reference Number RCC0249732

Dear Mr John

Thank you for your correspondence dated 26 May 2009.

This correspondence will now be treated as a request for review of your
recent request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We will respond by 23 June 09 which is 20 working days from the date we
received your recent correspondence.  This is in accordance with our
internal review procedures.

Yours sincerely

Iman Elmehdawy

Assistant Internal Compliance Manager

show quoted sections

http://www.ico.gov.uk or email: [email address]
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 700 Fax: 01625 524 510

References

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1. file:///tmp/radAAC63_files/filelist.xml

Link: [1]File-List

23rd June 2009

Dear Mr John

Request for internal review:   RCC0249732

(Information request:  IRQ0246164)

I’m writing in response to your request for an internal review of the
ICO’s refusal to provide you with information.

You requested the following information on 30 April 2009:

“i)  How many local authorities; District, Borough and Parish Council
have communicated with the Information Commissioner’s Office concerning
the use of the ‘www.whatdotheyknow.com’ website and it’s use for FOI
requests?

ii)  Please identify those authorities from question i) above?

iii)  Please provide a copy of any advice or guidance given to those
authorities from question ii) above in relation to FOI requests made via
the ‘www.whatdotheyknow.com’ website?”

The ICO explained that section 12 of the FOI Act 2000 applied because the
cost of searching for and retrieving the information requested would
exceed the appropriate limit, calculated in accordance with the
Appropriate Limit and Fees Regulations 2004. I have reviewed the response
and find that the application of the Act and the Regulations was correct.
I have nothing to add in that regard to the response sent on 26 May 2009
by Iman Elmehdawy.

However, I thought it would be helpful if I told you what advice the ICO
gives to public authorities who enquire about requests made via the
website www.whatdotheyknow.com. We tell all authorities, including local
authorities that they should respond to such requests as they do to any
other requests. This is because the test for the disclosure of information
under the FOI Act is whether it should be disclosed to the public at
large, not just to the person who has asked for it.

An electronic address is sufficient as a valid address for communication
under section 8.

Any other concerns an authority may have about a particular request may be
separately addressed. For example if they have evidence to suggest that a
request may be vexatious or repeated, they may consider applying section
14.

Some authorities claim they have concerns about a potential breach of
intellectual property rights when information is posted on a website.
However, that is not usually the case and in itself is not a reason for
failing to deal with a request made via a website. If an exemption applies
this should be explained to the requester the usual way.

If you are not content that your review has been dealt with correctly, you
have a further right of appeal to this office in our capacity as the
statutory complaint handler under the legislation.  To make such an
application, please write to the Case Reception Team, at the address below
or visit the ‘Complaints’ section of our website to make a Freedom of
Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

 

I hope this is helpful.

Yours sincerely

GRAHAM SMITH

Deputy Commissioner

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http://www.ico.gov.uk or email: [email address]
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 700 Fax: 01625 524 510

References

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1. file:///tmp/radD2EC9_files/filelist.xml