contract for the provision of homeless services (non accommodation) 1/5/09 - 30/4/09

Dear Sir or Madam,
RE: Lot 2: Establish a home.
Contract for the Provision of Homeless Services (non accommodation)
1/5/09 -30/4/09
Please provide the following for all short listed bids for the
above:
Tenderers submission - (schedule 2).
The Pricing schedule for that bid.
Any other e mail / documents relating to financial matters received
from the shortlisted bidders subsequent to the tender submission.

I respectfully draw your attention to the Scottish Information
Commissioner decision Streetwork and Glasgow city council, Ref
200701489, when considering your response to this request.

Yours faithfully,

Gill Young

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Edinburgh Council's
handling of my FOI request 'contract for the provision of homeless
services (non accommodation) 1/5/09 - 30/4/09'.
Ref 4186 / Lot 4

Bernie Giles
Senior Project Manager
Freedom of Information
Level 1
Chesser House
Gorgie road
Edinburgh
EH11 3YJ

26 April 2009

Dear Mr Giles

Thank you for your reply to my freedom of information request(s). I
am pleased that you will be sending my copies of the winning bids
for all the Lots in this tender in the near future.

I am hereby formally requesting an internal review of your decision
not to give me the other information I requested, namely all of the
short listed bids for all the above Lots.

I understand that you are asserting that this information is exempt
under S33(1) (b) of the FOIA (Scotland) and that you do not think
that it is of sufficient public interest to warrant being released.
You do not give me any evidence of how you came to this conclusion.

Having looked at the guidance issued on the information
commissioner website I would argue the following in support of my
review and ask for the information to be released.

The guidance states that information will normally only be
appropriately withheld where it can be demonstrated that release
would be likely to cause real and actual harm to a relevant
commercial, financial or economic interest (in this case the
council). The damage caused by disclosing information must be real,
significant and the damage would have to occur in the near future.
Your reply gives me no clue as to how you applied this test when
considering my request.

I can think of no reason how the council (or even tender bidders)
would be significantly and evidently commercially harmed by the
public knowing the details of the services they planned to provide
and the cost of this to the inhabitants of Edinburgh.

Even if this were to be demonstrated, there is the public interest
test. This means that even if the information were to be deemed
commercially sensitive the authority should release the information
if it is in the public interest. If the two are evenly balanced
then the guidance states the presumption should always be in favour
of disclosure. Again you have not provided evidence of applying
this test – only your assertion that it is not in the public
interest.

I argue the following to show that it is in the public interest to
release the information about all the short listed bids:

Scrutiny of decisions made by the elected council on behalf of its
constituents. How are we to know that the tender decision has been
done along the lines of 70% quality and 30% financial basis. I am
not saying it hasn't, just saying that I think it is exactly this
sort of public ability to understand and look at the decisions made
by the council. We are supposed to be active participants in a
local democracy, able to scrutinise decisions that affect the city
and its inhabitants, not just passive recipients of decisions made
in secret. The council should be able to justify its decision
making.

The money being spent on these services is public money and most of
the organisations bidding for the tender are also publicly funded,
and I think we should be able to see we are getting quality
services, not just cheap ones.

At present the council and public are aware that this tendering
process has not gone smoothly. There has been press coverage. MSPs
and Councillors have all asked questions about it. The guidance on
exemption also states that 'Public authorities should be aware that
changing circumstances could strengthen or weaken the public
interest arguments in favour of disclosure'. With the questions
still to be answered on both employment of workers (indeed, the
Unite union asked for extra council monitoring of this situation
for its workers, but was refused at a deputation to the finance
committee in March) and services being taken over by the council, 6
month contract extensions being given I think that this is
precisely why we should be able to look at your decision making.
Only receiving the winning bids will not make this possible as
there is nothing to compare with each bid with.

Yours sincerely

Gill Young

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...