Constituencies Services of Birmingham City Council.

Dear Luqman Khan,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Request for Information

Thank you for your request for information held by the Council under the
provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, we
will let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you, and you will be
required to pay before we will proceed to deal with your request.

If you require any further information or are not happy with our response
please do not hesitate to contact a member of our team on 0121 303 4428
quoting the reference number above in any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Donna Walton
Information Governance Manager

Data Protection Act 1998
The information you have provided within your Freedom of Information
request will be held on our database and may also be held within manual
records for a period of 2 years from the date Birmingham City Council
received your request. Any personal data that you provide to Birmingham
City Council will be held in line with the requirements set out within the
Data Protection Act 1998.

Re Use of Public Sector Information
Where Birmingham City Council is the copyright holder of any information
that may be released, re-use for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes is permitted without further reference to the City Council. Where
the re-use is for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, the applicant
should notify the City Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms
for re-use.

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Dear Luqman Khan,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Request for Information
I am writing regarding you request for information, which was received on
30th November 2009. I can confirm that the department holds information
that falls within the description specified in your request. However,
Birmingham City Council has estimated that it will cost more than the
appropriate limit to consider your request.

The appropriate limit specified in the regulations is £450.00. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in
determining whether the department holds the information, and locating,
retrieving and extracting the information. Consequently, the Council is
not obliged by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to respond to your
request see section 12(1).

However, we are still happy to do so if you pay the fee as set out in this
notice, the estimated cost of processing your request is (£4000 which
equates to 160 hours worth of work). This charge has been calculated in
accordance with section 13 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the
Freedom of Information Fees Regulations.

The Council will be unable to continue processing your request until the
fee is paid. If you wish the Council to continue to deal with your request
you should pay the fee requested within 3 calendar months (14th March
2010). If the Council does not receive payment of the fee by this date, I
shall take it that your do not wish to pursue this request and will
consider the request closed

If you narrow the scope of your request, the Council may be able to
provide the information free of charge because it would cost less than the
appropriate limit to do so. Please see your requests below together with
our comments and queries we require an answer to in order for us to be
able to respond to your request. Any reformulated request the department
receives from you will be treated as a fresh FOI request.

1 In each of the last 3 years, please name each service provided by
each of the constituency services and the percentages of each
racial groups to whom each service is provided to. The percentages of each
racial group I request is the percentages of Pakistanis out of the
total Pakistani population in that constituency, the percentages of white
population of the total white population in that constituency and
so on.

It is estimated that this information would take approximately 20
hours to compile. Due to the nature of the request we are unable to
provide ALL information requested as ethnicity of service users
is not always collated for all users. (e.g in libraries visitors count we
simply count numbers through the door not recording
personal details of visitors.)

To narrow down your request can you specify which "constituency
services" you are specifically interested in from the range that the
constituenices are 'directly' responsible:

Neighbourhood Offices
Community Libraries
Sport & Leisure centres
Community & Play Centres

These service areas are the main four which are directly managed
by Constituencies. Also, to narrow down your request to 1 year
would keep you within the fees limit for this question only.

2 In each of the last 3 years, please name each external
organisation to whom each constituency has given grant and the
amount of grant and name the services provided and of the total number
of people serviced broken into percentages by racial
groups such as Pakistanis.

To be able to provide details of organisations that received
community chest funding for 3 years, amounts, brief description project,
etc would mean asking officers in 10 constiturencies for the
information which we estimate would take 100 hours work. For your
information, even conducting this search would not, most
crucially detail the beneficiaries of individual projects broken down by
ethnicity.
All Community Chest funded projects will have been reported to
Ward Committees so the information we have is already a matter of
public record. Narrowing down your request to 1 year would reduce
time limit by 50% however this would still be over the fees limit of 18
hours.

3 In each of the last 3 years, please give the dates and venues of
the consultations undertaken by each constituency and name the
purpose of the consultation and for each consultation of the total number
of people attended broken down into percentages of
racial groups such as Pakistanis.

We require clarification on the type of consultation / engagement
you mean in order to help shape our response. For your information
and to assist with narrowing down your request the Managers in
Constituency and Ward Committees record the number of members of
the public present, not names or ethnicity. There may be other forms of
consultation such as local surveys. There are also community
events but again it will not be custom and practice to record
personal details of those members of public turning up for a fun day at a
school for example. We estimate that this request alone would
take 40 hours to compile (approximately 4 hours per constituency x 10) .
If we provided only 1 year of information it would reduce by 50% but
again this would still be 20 hours worth of work.

4 In each of the last 3 years, please name each funding provided by
the central government and or Europe and name the
constituency these funding is used and the amount used by each
constituency and in each constituency the total number of people
serviced broken down into racial groups such as Pakistanis.

We do not hold this information.

I would be grateful if you would forward a cheque or postal order in
pounds sterling made payable to ‘Birmingham City Council’. Once the
fee has been paid a copy of the information will be despatched to you.
Please find enclosed a pre-paid envelope for your reply.

If you require any further information or are not happy with our response
please do not hesitate to contact me on 0121 303 4428.

Yours sincerely

Donna Walton
Information Governance Manager

Data Protection Act 1998
The information you have provided within your Freedom of Information
request will be held on our database and may also be held within manual
records for a period of 2 years from the date Birmingham City Council
received your request. Any personal data that you provide to Birmingham
City Council will be held in line with the requirements set out within the
Data Protection Act 1998.

Re Use of Public Sector Information
Where Birmingham City Council is the copyright holder of any information
that may be released, re-use for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes is permitted without further reference to the City Council. Where
the re-use is for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, the applicant
should notify the City Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms
for re-use.

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Dear Mr Khan,

Thank you for your email of 30th December 2009 which refers to the fees
notice sent to you on 14th December 2009 relating to FOI 3618. I note
your dissatisfaction with my response and have now passed your email to
the Corporate Governance Team to deal with as an appeal. They will be in
contact with you shortly to advise.

Can you please advise if you are dissatisfied with my fees notice for FOI
3628 which I sent to you on 18th December. If so, I will also pass this
to our Corporate Governance Team to deal with as a separate appeal.

Regarding your email of 30th December, I have noted that the questions are
different from those previously requested in both FOI 3618 and 3628. I
will consider this as a new Freedom of Information request and deal with
it accordingly in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please
accept this email as acknowledgment of receipt of your new request.

If I can be of any further assistance in the interim, please do not
hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards

Donna Walton
Information Governance Manager

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Dear Mr Khan,

I have forwarded your email to our Corporate Governance Team however they
are asking which section of the Race Relations Act are you referring to?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Donna Walton
Information Governance Manager

Tel: 0121 303 4428
Fax: 0121 303 4833
Email: [email address]

Level 1, Louisa Ryland House, 44 Newhall Street, Birmingham B3 3PL

BeBirmingham " A global City with a local heart"

City Housing Partnership " to provide the platform that enables people to
thrive and choose to live in Birmingham"

Luqman Khan To [email address]
<[FOI #23918 email]> cc
Subject Re: Freedom of Information
30/12/2009 11:52 request - Constituencies
Services of Birmingham City
Council.

Dear Birmingham City Council,

1) I am not happy with Birmingham City Council (BCC) response dated
14 December 2009 to my Freedom of Information (FOI) request dated
29 November 2009.

2) BCC response is inadequate and it demonstrates BCC lack of
helpfulness and lack of co-operation and lack of compliance with
the spirit and substance of the Freedom of Information Act.

3) BCC response also clearly demonstrates that BCC is not complying
with the statutory Public Duty in the Race Relations Act.

4) The statutory Public Duty in the Race Relations Act not only
requires the public authorities to collect and monitor the level
and quality of services provided to the different racial groups but
the Public Duty also requires the public authorities to place and
publish all that information where the public can easily access all
the information.

5) All the Information I have requested should already be available
and easily accessible to the public under the statutory Public Duty
in the Race Relations Act. There is no question of anyone been
asked to pay for it.

6) All the information I request in my FOI request dated 29
November 2009 is within the scope of the statutory Public Duty in
the Race Relations Act. The law requires BCC to make it available
and easily accessible free of charge.

7) Please name each of the service the Constituency Services
provide that do not record the ethnicity of the Service Users and
please give details to explain how each of these services ensure
that all racial groups are equally included to take up the services
and to ensure that no racial group disproportionately miss out on
each service.

8) Please provide me all the ethnicity information for any number
of services and for any number of years and for any constituencies
without BCC requiring me to pay for it.

9) Please name each service and name each years out of the 3 and
name each constituency for which BCC continues to want me to pay
for the information before BCC will provide it. Also confirm that
the BCC have already got all the ethnicity information I have
request but will only provide it after I pay for it.

10) Please provide the exact details of the place on BCC website
and the postal address of where I can access all the information I
requested in my FOI on 29 November 2009.

11) Please Note that the Leader of the Council and the Chief
Executive of BCC have recently made much of the fact that for cost
saving reasons members of the public would not get the papers on
the meeting Agenda because they can get them from BCC website when
they attend any council Wards, Constituencies, Cabinet and full
Council meetings. So at least all the information I have request
should be available of BCC Website But I can't find it because I
believe it is not there.

12) Please explain why BCC failed to take into consideration all of
the above before responding on 14 December 2009 to my FOI request
and demanding payment of over **4000 from me. Senior managers and
Senior Councillors should be held accountable for their contempt
for the Freedom of Information Act and for their contempt for the
Race Relations Act

13) Please do not give me any more run around. Just treat the law
with the respect that it deserves.

Yours faithfully,

Luqman Khan

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Dear Mr Khan,

Please be advised that I have passed your email to our Corporate
Governance Team to take FOI 3628 to appeal.

Regarding your further requests below, this has now been logged as a new
request (FOI 3704) and will be dealt with accordingly in line with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Kind regards

Donna Walton
Information Governance Manager

Tel: 0121 303 4428
Fax: 0121 303 4833
Email: [email address]

Level 1, Louisa Ryland House, 44 Newhall Street, Birmingham B3 3PL

BeBirmingham " A global City with a local heart"

City Housing Partnership " to provide the platform that enables people to
thrive and choose to live in Birmingham"

Luqman Khan To [email address]
<[FOI #23918 email]> cc
Subject Re: Freedom of Information
30/12/2009 11:52 request - Constituencies
Services of Birmingham City
Council.

Dear Birmingham City Council,

1) I am not happy with Birmingham City Council (BCC) response dated
14 December 2009 to my Freedom of Information (FOI) request dated
29 November 2009.

2) BCC response is inadequate and it demonstrates BCC lack of
helpfulness and lack of co-operation and lack of compliance with
the spirit and substance of the Freedom of Information Act.

3) BCC response also clearly demonstrates that BCC is not complying
with the statutory Public Duty in the Race Relations Act.

4) The statutory Public Duty in the Race Relations Act not only
requires the public authorities to collect and monitor the level
and quality of services provided to the different racial groups but
the Public Duty also requires the public authorities to place and
publish all that information where the public can easily access all
the information.

5) All the Information I have requested should already be available
and easily accessible to the public under the statutory Public Duty
in the Race Relations Act. There is no question of anyone been
asked to pay for it.

6) All the information I request in my FOI request dated 29
November 2009 is within the scope of the statutory Public Duty in
the Race Relations Act. The law requires BCC to make it available
and easily accessible free of charge.

7) Please name each of the service the Constituency Services
provide that do not record the ethnicity of the Service Users and
please give details to explain how each of these services ensure
that all racial groups are equally included to take up the services
and to ensure that no racial group disproportionately miss out on
each service.

8) Please provide me all the ethnicity information for any number
of services and for any number of years and for any constituencies
without BCC requiring me to pay for it.

9) Please name each service and name each years out of the 3 and
name each constituency for which BCC continues to want me to pay
for the information before BCC will provide it. Also confirm that
the BCC have already got all the ethnicity information I have
request but will only provide it after I pay for it.

10) Please provide the exact details of the place on BCC website
and the postal address of where I can access all the information I
requested in my FOI on 29 November 2009.

11) Please Note that the Leader of the Council and the Chief
Executive of BCC have recently made much of the fact that for cost
saving reasons members of the public would not get the papers on
the meeting Agenda because they can get them from BCC website when
they attend any council Wards, Constituencies, Cabinet and full
Council meetings. So at least all the information I have request
should be available of BCC Website But I can't find it because I
believe it is not there.

12) Please explain why BCC failed to take into consideration all of
the above before responding on 14 December 2009 to my FOI request
and demanding payment of over **4000 from me. Senior managers and
Senior Councillors should be held accountable for their contempt
for the Freedom of Information Act and for their contempt for the
Race Relations Act

13) Please do not give me any more run around. Just treat the law
with the respect that it deserves.

Yours faithfully,

Luqman Khan

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Dear Mr Khan

Please see the attached for your request for an internal review.

(See attached file: Request for Appeal.doc)

Yours sincerely

Corporate Information Governance Team

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Dear Mr Khan,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Request for Information
I am writing regarding you request for information, which was received on
31st December 2009. I can confirm that the department holds information
that falls within the description specified in your request. However,
Birmingham City Council has estimated that it will cost more than the
appropriate limit to consider your request.

Please note that all of the Freedom of Information requests you have
submitted within the last 3 months are related to the same subject which
is equalities. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we are obliged
to deem these the same request and effectively add up all hours of work
already spent on each one together with all work necessary to fulfill each
one. This amounts to a considerable amount of time which will prove to be
considerably expensive should you wish to continue with the request.

The appropriate limit specified in the regulations is £450.00. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in
determining whether the department holds the information, and locating,
retrieving and extracting the information. Consequently, the Council is
not obliged by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to respond to your
request see section 12(1).

If you are willing to pay the fees notices recent sent, we will continue
with the request.

If you narrow the scope of your request as detailed in previous emails,
the Council may be able to provide the information free of charge because
it would cost less than the appropriate limit to do so. For instance if
you (provide advice and assistance). Any reformulated request the
department receives from you will be treated as a fresh FOI request.

If you require any further information or are not happy with our response
please do not hesitate to contact me on 0121 303 4428.

Yours sincerely

Donna Walton
Information Governance Manager

Data Protection Act 1998
The information you have provided within your Freedom of Information
request will be held on our database and may also be held within manual
records for a period of 2 years from the date Birmingham City Council
received your request. Any personal data that you provide to Birmingham
City Council will be held in line with the requirements set out within the
Data Protection Act 1998.

Re Use of Public Sector Information
Where Birmingham City Council is the copyright holder of any information
that may be released, re-use for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes is permitted without further reference to the City Council. Where
the re-use is for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, the applicant
should notify the City Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms
for re-use.

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Dear Mr Luqman Khan

Further to your request for an internal appeal under the Freedom of
Information Act, please see attached our decision letter.

With kind regards
Corporate Information Governance Team

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Dear Mr Khan

If you are not happy with Birmingham City Council's appeal decision, then
you have the right to take this matter to the Information Commissioners
Office, please see their address below:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tele No: 01625 545700

www.ico.gov.uk

regards

Corporate Information Governance Team

Luqman Khan
<request-23918-96
775932@whatdothey To
know.com> [email address]
cc
08/02/2010 08:30
Subject
Re: Freedom of Information request
- Constituencies Services of
Birmingham City Council.

Dear Birmingham City Council,

1) I am not happy with BCC response of 2 February 2010 in response
to my FOI request dated 29 November 2009.

2) BCC has been unhelpful and obstructive through out my FOI
request.

3) What ever excuse BCC comes up with, the fact remains that the
statutory public duty in the Race Relations Act requires BCC to
compile ethnicity information for all BCC services and publish it.
It is up to the service users to decide whether or not the service
users wish to give the ethnicity information to BCC. But BCC must
show that it requested the ethnicity information from the service
users. BCC records will then show the number of service users
ethnicity recorded and the number of service users who did not wish
their ethnicity to be recorded. The Race Relations Act require BCC
to publish this information to demonstrate race inequality/equality
in services and make it available to the public. I would like BCC
to provide me with details why BCC is failing to comply with the
statutory public duty in the Race Relations Act in this respect.

4) In the event that the number of service users who did not want
their ethnicity recorded is statistically significant and therefore
race inequality/equality is not able to be demonstrated then BCC
must show that BCC has used other methods such as scientific
surveys etc. to demonstrate race inequality/equality in services
and BCC must publish this data and make it available to the public.
I would like BCC to provide me with details why BCC is failing to
comply with the statutory public duty in the Race Relations Act in
this respect.

5) The above is not rocket science. BCC very well understands the
above but chooses to be obstructive and not to want to provide the
information because it is failing to comply with the statutory
public duty in the Race Relations act and BCC Chief Executive knows
that this is the case. I would like BCC Chief executive to provide
me with details why BCC is failing to comply with the statutory
public duty in the Race Relations Act in the above two matters.

6) I now turn to the cost.

7) BCC is demanding over £4000 from me to meet my FOI request. BCC
demands £25 per hour in excess of 18 hour for all FOI requests. Yet
the employees who produce the information are already employed and
would be producing the information during normal Council hours, by
paid Council employees and, as such, the Council would not incur
any additional costs this is according to the wisdom of BCC Chief
Legal Officer.

8) Below I set out what the Stirrer reported that the BCC Chief
Legal Officer said to www.thestirrer.co.uk on 4 December 2007

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Stirrer www.thestirrer.co.uk

Brum Council Racism Case 1, 04-12-2007

On this site yesterday, we raised questions about the true cost of
Birmingham Council defending itself against former employee X – a
victim of local authority racism. The city’s Chief Legal officer Mr
Y replies.

Our article was prompted by an anonymous emailer who circulated all
120 councillors with the suggestion that the true cost of mounting
a defence was around £200,000

This is far in excess of the figure of £43,000 in legal fees given
to The Stirrer, and dutifully reported in last week’s Birmingham
Mail column .

We gave Mr Y the right to reply on the subject, and also invited
him to take part in an unedited interview with Stirrer TV.

Here, in full, is his reply: “The Chief Legal Officer has already
given full details of Counsel's costs in this case.

“In terms of internal lawyer time, the handling of this case has
been conducted, during normal Council hours, by paid Council
employees and, as such, the Council has not incurred any additional
costs of handling the Paul Samuels case, save for the Counsel fees
already indicated”.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

9) The remainder of the Legal Chief Officer reply was not about
cost so I have left it out.

10) I request that BCC Chief Executive provide me with details of
any BCC policies that explains why BCC demand to charge £25 per
hour for FOI request and why BCC Chief Legal Officer gave
information to the public on the Stirrer website that information
produced during normal Council hours, by paid Council employees
does not incur any additional costs to BCC. This is important
matter. Either BCC is wrongly demanding £25 per hour from me for
FOI or BCC is doing false accounting contrary to the law when BCC
Chief Legal Officer in December 2007 wrote - “In terms of internal
lawyer time, the handling of this case has been conducted, during
normal Council hours, by paid Council employees and, as such, the
Council has not incurred any additional costs of handling the Paul
Samuels case, save for the Counsel fees already indicated”.

11) Also BCC has been unhelpful in not breaking down the hours and
cost for the various components of my FOI request so that I can
make a shopping list to get the information I want free of charge
within the limits of £450/18 hours. I request that BCC provide me
with the breakdown of hour for the various components of my FOI
request. I also request that BCC Chief executive provide details of
why BCC has been so unhelpful to this aspect of my FOI which is
contrary to the FOI law.

12) In first made the FOI request on 29 November 2009 and because
of BCC unhelpful and obstructive responses the information has
still not been provided. I request that BCC provide me the
information and explanation I have made in this request of 8
February 2010 within two weeks.

Yours faithfully,

Luqman Khan

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