Consultancy agreement with Open Source Innovation Ltd

Peter made this Freedom of Information request to University of Cambridge

The request was successful.

From: Peter

5 October 2008

Dear Sir or Madam,

According to the report and accounts for the period ended 30th
September 2007 of the charity named "Open Source Innovation Ltd"
(registered charity 1110906):

"OSI secured a consultancy agreement with the University of
Cambridge for the development and implementation of educational
software, in particular the CAMSYS System, which is used by this
institution to manage the selection, enrolment and academic
development of students." (page 6)

Presumably, "CAMSYS" refers to CamSIS.

Please may I have a copy of the consultancy agreement.

Yours faithfully,

Peter

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From: FOI
University of Cambridge

17 October 2008

Dear Sir,

The University has taken legal advice and concluded that an email address is not an "address" within
the meaning of section 8(1) of the 2000 FOI Act, and that, before the University deals with any
request, correspondents should be required to indicate a physical location where they can receive
correspondence. That does not mean that the University is not prepared to respond via e-mail to
requests but in order to provide assurance that a request is legitimate a postal request should be
provided for our records.
Therefore please provide us with a postal address. We will not process your request further until
this information is received.

Kind Regards
FOI Team

--------------------
University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

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Alex Skene left an annotation (17 October 2008)

An email address is sufficient under Section 8.1.b of the FOIA & both the Ministry of Justice and Information Commissioner have provided guidance notes to FOI practitioners affirming this - links to their guidance here: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about...

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From: Peter

17 October 2008

Dear sir/madam,

I am afraid that your legal advice conflicts with guidance from
both the Ministry of Justice and the Information Commissioner's
Office.

The Ministry of Justice has guidance [1] on this - "As well as hard
copy written correspondence, requests that are transmitted
electronically (for example, in emails) are acceptable ... If a
request is received by email and no postal address is given, the
email address should be treated as the return address."

As if that isn't enough, the Information Commissioner's Hints for
Practitioners [2] say "Any correspondence could include a request
for information. If it is written (this includes e-mail), legible,
gives the name of the applicant, an address for reply (which could
be electronic), and includes a description of the information
required, then it will fall within the scope of the legislation."

You may also be interested in a letter [3] from the ICO to Rother
District Council which gives guidance on the matter, specifically
in the context of requests made via WhatDoTheyKnow.

Yours faithfully,

Peter

[1] http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/foi-p...

[2]
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

[3]
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/11...

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From: FOI
University of Cambridge

3 November 2008

Attachment 120 Peter.pdf
4.6M Download View as HTML

Attachment FOI 2008 120 Peter.pdf
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Dear "Peter",

Further to your request for information, please find enclosed the University's response.

Kind Regards
FOI Team

--------------------
University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

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Richard Taylor left an annotation ( 4 November 2008)

While I accept redacting the individual consultant names under the exemption provided by Section 40 (Personal Information) of the FOI Act, I think the University may have gone too far in removing the daily fees, and total fees from the contract. It is not clear if these fees were included in the contract or not, as it has not been made clear where any redactions have been made and this looks largely like a template document.

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