Company numbers

Dear Mr Eilbank

Your freedom of information request has been passed to the Information Rights Team as we deal with such requests for Companies House.

We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response will be sent as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Mr A Howells
Information Rights Team

This message and any attachments are intended for the persons named as addressees only and may contain confidential information. In addition they may be protected by copyright.

If you receive it in error, notify us, delete it and do not make use of or copy it. You must not copy, disseminate or otherwise distribute or publish this message, except for the purposes for which this message is intended, without our consent.

Please note that this e-mail has been created in the knowledge that Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communications medium. We advise that you understand and accept this lack of security when e-mailing us.

For company information, guidance and how to file documents online,
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Dear Mr Elibank

I refer to your freedom of information request dated 10 March 2010 for:

1. a list of all registered company numbers issued since 1st January 1991
and are no longer in use for whatever reason
2. a list of all company numbers currently in use

I am sure you will appreciate that with well over 2 million companies
currently registered at Companies House, your request covers a huge amount
of data. In addition to this, the information you have requested is
already in the public domain and available to members of the public.
Under section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, information that
is already in the public domain is exempt form disclosure because it is
reasonably accessible, albeit on payment of a fee. I do appreciate that
to obtain the information requested would require searching the whole
register which would be excessive but Companies House does provide a
bespoke service to assist customers who require large amounts of data from
the public register. There is a fee for this service which will obviously
depend on the amount of information required and the complexity of the
programme or programmes required to extract it.

I have made initial enquiries and to satisfy your request it would take a
considerable amount of time to extract the information and would be
costly. For example, to extract all the company numbers currently is use,
it would take 6 days to write the programme to extract the information and
5 days to run this programme. This is an estimate so if you choose to go
down this route, the work would have to be costed and then paid for before
the product is supplied. More information on bespoke products and who to
contact should you wish to pursue this further can be found on our Price
List on the Companies House website by following the link below.
Obviously, you may be able to refine your request which could reduce the
amount of work required and consequently the fee but you will need to
discuss this with our Customer Services Team.

[1]http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsTo...

I hope the information above is helpful. As this information is already
available to you on payment of a fee, I must therefore refuse your request
as the information is exempt under section 21 of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. As your request has been considered under the
freedom of information legislation, I am required to inform you that if
you are unhappy with the result of your request for information you may
request an internal review within two calendar months of the date of this
email. Any requests for such a review should be addressed, in the first
instance to me at the above address, and I will ensure that it is
forwarded to a senior member of Companies House who has had no previous
involvement in this case and they will undertake the review.

If you are then not content with the outcome of the internal review, you
have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at Information
Commissioners Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF.

Regards

Mr A Howells
Information Rights Team

>>> Steve Elibank <[2][FOI #30507 email]>
10/03/2010 13:53 >>>
Dear Sir/Madam;

Please treat this as a request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000.

1. I would like a list of all registered company numbers issued
since 1st January 1991 and are no longer in use for whatever
reason.

2. I would also like a list of all company numbers currently in
use.

Note that I am not asking for any associated information, just an
actual list of numbers.

Yours faithfully,
Steve Elibank

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Elibank

Thank you for your email in which you request an internal review of the
way in which your request made under the freedom of information
legislation was handled.

I am more than happy to forward this case for internal review but I should
point out at this stage that the reviewer will only consider the fact that
your request has been refused as the information you require is exempt
under section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is because
the information you have requested is already available to you, albeit on
payment of a fee.

Under freedom of information legislation, the reviewer does not have the
remit to extend his investigation into the costing issues that you have
mentioned. This is a matter that you would need to escalate through the
Companies House complaints procedure with regard to the fee that would be
charged for this product. Having said this, I did explain in my previous
email that the costing provided was only an estimate and that if you
wished to pursue this further you should contact Customer Services via the
address on the website to clarify the costing.

I hope this has clarified the fact that the internal review will only
determine whether the exemption under section 21 has been applied
correctly in this case. I would be grateful if you could confirm that you
still wish to proceed.

Regards

Mr A Howells
Information Rights Team

>>> Steve Elibank <[1][FOI #30507 email]>
24/03/2010 16:57 >>>
Dear Mr Howells,

I notice that you state, "to extract all the company numbers
currently is [sic] use, it would take 6 days to write the programme
to extract the information," but I simply do not believe that to
merely collate a list of every company number (presumably just one
column in one particular table in one particular databse) could
possibly require almost a week of programming.

It is a ludicrous suggestion, and for that reason, I hereby request
an Internal Review regarding your organisation's handling of this
request. I shall be expecting a response within 20 working days,
according to law.

Yours sincerely,
Steve Elibank

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Elibank

With reference to your email dated 26 March 2010.

I note that you wish to continue with your request for an internal review
of the handling of your freedom of information request.

This case will be forwarded to a senior member of Companies House who will
undertake the review and respond to you directly.
Yours sincerely

Mrs J Lumsden
Information Rights Team

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may be protected by copyright.

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intended, without our consent.

Please note that this e-mail has been created in the knowledge that
Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communications medium. We advise that
you understand and accept this lack of security when e-mailing us.

For company information, guidance and how to file documents online, please
see our website [1]www.companieshouse.gov.uk.

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Dear Mr Elibank

I have been asked to forward to you the response to your request for an internal review, which is attached.

Regards

Mr A Howells
Information Rights Team

This message and any attachments are intended for the persons named as addressees only and may contain confidential information. In addition they may be protected by copyright.

If you receive it in error, notify us, delete it and do not make use of or copy it. You must not copy, disseminate or otherwise distribute or publish this message, except for the purposes for which this message is intended, without our consent.

Please note that this e-mail has been created in the knowledge that Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communications medium. We advise that you understand and accept this lack of security when e-mailing us.

For company information, guidance and how to file documents online,
please see our website www.companieshouse.gov.uk.

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