Community group listing

Dear Enquirer,

Your message has been received and will be dealt with as soon as possible.
Our standard is to reply within ten working days.
Should you need to make contact with us again on this matter, it helps us
if you quote reference number: 10837

Kind Regards
Dan at HertsDirect

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Bus Users Group for Stevenage To FOI requests at
<[FOI #35289 email]> Hertfordshire County Council
<[Hertfordshire County Council request email]>
17/05/2010 11:18 cc
Subject Freedom of Information
request - Community group
listing

Dear Hertfordshire County Council,

Could you tell me the processes, areas of Hertfordshire County
Council's policies, advice or any other criteria that govern the
inclusion or exclusion of links to community groups' websites on
the county councils website.

Yours faithfully,

Bus Users Group for Stevenage

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Reference number: FOI/RAP/05/10/2124

Dear Bus Users Group for Stevenage,

Thank you for your correspondence of 17th May 2010 requesting the
following information:

'Could you tell me the processes, areas of Hertfordshire County
Council's policies, advice or any other criteria that govern the
inclusion or exclusion of links to community groups' websites on
the county councils website.'

Your request for information is being considered under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. We will respond to your request as quickly as
possible, and by 15th June 2010 at the latest.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me, quoting
the reference number on this email. To find out more about Freedom of
Information, please visit www.hertsdirect.org/foi.

Yours sincerely,

Information Governance Unit
Hertfordshire County Council
Telephone: 01992 555848
Fax: 01992 588117
Email: [email address]

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Dear Bus Users Group for Stevenage

Reference number: FOI/RAP/05/10/2124

On 17 th May 2010 we received the following request for information from
you:

Could you tell me the processes, areas of Hertfordshire County Council's
policies, advice or any other criteria that govern the inclusion or
exclusion of links to community groups' websites on the county councils
website.

Your request for information has been considered under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. I can confirm that Hertfordshire County Council does
hold the information you have requested, and can respond as follows:

There are two different approaches to holding and displaying community
information for groups in Hertfordshire on the hertsdirect Website.

The first is in the communinty and voluntary organisations directory.
which can be viewed at:
http://www.hertsdirect.org/comdirectory/...

These entries provide an opportunity for local groups and service
providers to give a description of their service and contact details
including a web address. There is an online form available at the above
page for people to complete and submit. The working guidance below is used
by the Unit responsible for this area of webcontent. It is generally
understood that records will be cxreated for any Hertfordshire based
groups who complete the application form as long as the language used and
purpose of the group do not contravene our responsibilities in terms of
the HCC ICT access Policy:

* Do not access, load, store, post or send from HCC ICT any material
that is, or may be considered to be, illegal, offensive, libellous,
pornographic, obscene, defamatory, intimidating, misleading or
disruptive to HCC or may bring HCC into disrepute.

The guidance below was produced to identify when applications from
commercial organisations would be acceptable.

Policy on the inclusion of commercial organisation records on the
Community and Voluntary Organisations section of HertsDirect

The aim of this policy is to clarify the decision making process on
whether individual commercial organisations should be included on
HertsDirect, it is intended primarily to provide guidance to CIDB
(Community Information DataBase) and KMU (Knowledge Management Unit)
staff.

We do include details of a number of commercial organisations on the
database where these offer direct services to the individual, which we
consider will be of interest to Hertfordshire residents.
We do not intend to provide information about commercial organisations
which primarily offer services to other businesses or organisations. Where
organisation records are held within the Community and Voluntary
Organisation section, these are considered to be listings and not
advertisements.

HCC reserves the right to refuse to include an organisation. All
information submitted must comply with the Data Protection Act and is
subject to the conditions of our disclaimer.

The second approach is the Guide to other websites which can be found at:
http://www.hertsdirect.org/atozoflinks/

These are arranged by subject, we do have a section relating to community
websites for towns and villages in Hertfordshire, but the majority of
links are to information sites which have been chosen because of their
authority on the topic covered. The Knowledge Management Unit are
responsible for considering requests for new sites to link to.
They can be contacted using the [Hertfordshire County Council request email] email address
and putting FAO Knowledge Management Unit inthe subject line.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me, quoting
the reference number on this letter. To find out more about Freedom of
Information, please visit www.hertsdirect.org/foi

If you are unhappy with the way the County Council has handled your
request for information, you may complain through the County Council's
complaints procedure which is available at www.hertsdirect.org/complaints

If you are unhappy with the outcome of the complaints procedure you are
entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to investigate your
complaint. You should write to: FOI/EIR Complaints Resolution, Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF.

Yours sincerely,

Elaine Dunnicliffe

Senior Information Access Practitoner

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Dear Bus Users Group for Stevenage

I can confirm that your understanding is correct Hertfordshire County
Council does reserve the right to refuse to list an organisation. This is
common practice among providers of such listing information, where it is
provided from the public.

We prioritise inclusion in favour of voluntary and community groups.
We are happy to accept entries from organisations whose views on a
particular topic may oppose those of County Council and include many
campaign groups and political organisations in our listing.

Our aim is to provide a directory of services which is of use to the
residents of, and visitors to, Hertfordshire. We do not consider ourselves
to be providing advertising space.

Retaining the right to refuse to include an organisation allows us not to
accept business to business services or those commercial organisations who
already have a high street presence or other high public profile; it would
also allow us to remove an organisation who had previously been accepted
but which significantly altered its purpose from the original one
described, or one whose website contained offensive material.

I hope this clarifies our approach.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me, quoting
the reference number on this letter. To find out more about Freedom of
Information, please visit www.hertsdirect.org/foi

If you are unhappy with the way the County Council has handled your
request for information, you may complain through the County Council's
complaints procedure which is available at www.hertsdirect.org/complaints

If you are unhappy with the outcome of the complaints procedure you are
entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to investigate your
complaint. You should write to: FOI/EIR Complaints Resolution, Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF.

Yours sincerely,

Elaine Dunnicliffe

Senior Information Access Practitioner
_______________________________________
Information Governance Unit
Hertfordshire County Council
Telephone: 01992 555848
Fax: 01992 588117
Email: [email address]

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