Council Use of IT Software

FoI/2010/44

Dear Mr Fitzsimons,

Thank you for your request. In the interests of information security
some of this information is likely to be exempt from provision under
Section 30 and Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I will pass your request to the ICT Service to establish what
information can be provided. If it appears it will take longer than 20
working days to consider the public interest test in relation to the
exemptions, I will advise you of any delay.

Yours sincerely

Sue Broughton

Information Management Officer

Policy & Communication

* West Berkshire Council, Council Offices, Market Street, Newbury RG14
5LD

Email: [West Berkshire Council request email]

01635 519747 (external) ' 2747 (internal) 6: 01635 519613

You should be aware that all emails received and sent by this Council
are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and therefore may be
disclosed to a third party.

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FoI/2010/44

Dear Mr Fitzsimons,

Thank you for your request. We have now collated some of the information to respond to your enquiry. You have asked for:

The total spend on ICT software in 2009-10: £163,578.00
Please note this represents the spend from the ICT budget. Services may pay some maintenance costs for software themselves, and may also purchase software packages from their own budgets, but it would take a considerable time to identify this information because it would involve asking each service whether they had purchased software during this financial year, and in our view would cause the request to exceed the 'appropriate limit' under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (when considered with the work carried out to respond to the remainder of your request). It appeared however that your request was concerned with the ICT Service procurement rather than other Services.

You have also asked for details of the IT Contracts Manager or other staff member involved in software procurement. There is no IT Contracts Manager (the Council has a Corporate Contracts and Procurement Manager, Tom Herring). ICT procurement is primarily handled by Maire Vere, Systems Control Assistant within the ICT Service. Other officers may also order items of hardware or software.

Regarding your additional requests - for a list of suppliers and consultants used during this financial year and for a breakdown of the software by application and department, we are still considering these. For information security reasons, some information is likely to be exempt under Section 31(1)(a). This is likely to include the details of software applications and supplier data where this would provide details of software applications.

Because of the amount of data we need to look at it will take somewhat longer than twenty working days to establish where the exemption applies, and to consider the public interest test. I am therefore advising you of our intention to extend this request under the provisions of Section 17(2)and that we intend to respond by 17th March.

Yours sincerely

Sue Broughton

Information Management Officer

Policy & Communication

* West Berkshire Council, Council Offices, Market Street, Newbury RG14 5LD

Email: [West Berkshire Council request email]

01635 519747 (external) ' 2747 (internal) 6: 01635 519613

You should be aware that all emails received and sent by this Council are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and therefore may be disclosed to a third party.

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FoI/2010/44

Dear Mr Fitzsimons,

Thank you for your request. We have now collated the information to
respond, and have considered the relevant exemption and the public
interest test in respect of part of the requested information.

You have asked for:

A complete list of suppliers/contractors and consultants that have been
used over the past year when procuring IT Software.
Please find attached a list of ICT suppliers extracted from the finance
database. It has not been possible within the appropriate limit under
Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to break this down
further to software and hardware suppliers (and suppliers of other
materials or services) - this would involve checking supplier details
against purchase orders. However all software suppliers are included.

The total spend on IT Software during the past financial year.
Response provided on 09/03.

A breakdown of this Software spend down to show which department uses
which application.

We have considered this request. However, we have established that there
is a serious risk to information security in providing information on
named software systems used within the Council. The practice can
increase the likelihood of security breaches and illegal access to
information. Details of the systems and the Services which use them are
therefore being refused because of the likely impact on the Council's
ICT security of placing this information in the public domain. The
relevant exemptions are Section 31 (1) (a) - prejudice to the prevention
of crime, and Section 43 (2) prejudice to the Council's commercial
interests, and the attached annex explains the exemptions and the public
interest test.

Please also provide details of IT Contracts Managers and any person(s)
involved in IT Software procurement.
Response provided on 09/03.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you may
ask for an internal review. You should contact David Lowe, Policy &
Scrutiny Manager, Policy & Communication, Council Offices, Market
Street, Newbury RG14 5LD, email [email address] if you wish to
request a review. If you are 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 Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me.

Yours sincerely

Sue Broughton

Information Management Officer

Policy & Communication

* West Berkshire Council, Council Offices, Market Street, Newbury RG14
5LD

Email: [West Berkshire Council request email]

01635 519747 (external) ' 2747 (internal) 6: 01635 519613

You should be aware that all emails received and sent by this Council
are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and therefore may be
disclosed to a third party.

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

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