Dear Sir or Madam,

No information is available from the website of the Complementary
and Natural Healthcare Council or by email from them regarding
which bodies representing complementary therapists are currently
registering their members with the Council, and no list is
available of their registrants.

Further, The CNHC has undertaken to make the Minutes of their Board
Meetings available on their website. They are not, although at
least one meeting must surely have taken place by now.

I request this information, which must certainly have been made
available to the DoH.

Yours faithfully,

Tony Brooks

Thank you for your enquiry.

We aim to respond within 20 working days.
If there is likely to be any delay we will contact you to let you know.

show quoted sections

8 May 2009
DE00000407770
Dear Mr Brooks,

Thank you for your email of 22 April requesting, under the Freedom of
Information (FOI) Act, a list of practitioners registered with the
Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) and minutes from CNCH
board meetings. Your email has been passed to me for reply.
The Department of Health does not hold the information you have requested.
However, I will try and clarify the points you raise.

The Department understands that the CNHC has a direct relationship with
its registrants, not with their professional bodies, known as Professional
Associations (PAs). We are advised that the CNHC and the PAs have good
collegiate relationships, and that some of the PAs are recommending to
their members that they should apply to register with the CNHC. However,
the PAs cannot register their members with the CNHC. Rather, individual
practitioners have to apply to the CNHC if they wish to be admitted to the
register.
As the CNHC is not a public body they are not obliged to provide this
information in response to a FOI request. In common with other
regulators, it is not possible to view an entire register on-line.
However, members of the public can search the register and find a
therapist by name, postcode or registration number.
As far as your second paragraph refers, the CNHC Board will, with effect
from their meeting in May, be making decisions from their meetings
available on the CNHC website. The committee meeting minutes will not be
publicly available as the function of the committees is to advise and
report to the Board.
I hope this reply is helpful.
If you have any queries about this email, please contact me. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to:

Head of the Freedom of Information Team
Department of Health
Room 317
Richmond House
79 Whitehall,
London
SW1A 2NS

Email: [1][email address]

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally,
the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints
procedure provided by the Department. The ICO can be contacted at:

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

Yours sincerely,

David Winks
Freedom of Information Team
Department of Health

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References

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David Winks,
Freedom of Information Team,
Department of Health

Reference:DE00000407770

Dear Mr Winks

Thank you for your email of 11th May about the CHNC's list of
registrants and the publication of the Minutes of their Board
Meeting.

You have explained to me that you are unable to ask the CHNC for
lists of their registrants because it is not their policy to make
such lists available, and I understand this.

On the matter of the Minutes of their Board Meetings you tell me
that the CNHC Board will, with effect
from their meeting in May, be making decisions from their meetings
available on the CNHC website, and I look forward to seeing these
in due course. However, you must be aware that a meeting of the
CNHC Board was held on 18th September 2008. Its Minutes were on
view on the CHNC website but have since disappeared. I am told that
another Board Meeting was scheduled for 19th February but I do not
know if it took place; certainly no Minutes were ever made public.

Since you do not mention these meetings in your email I assume you
had no knowledge of any details about the decisions which were
taken at them. This seems very unsatisfactory considering that the
CNHC was provided with substantial funds by the DoE which must
surely be concerned about how they are being spent

If my assumption is incorrect, and you do have information about
those meetings, or indeed any information at all about the progress
which the Council has made, I request that you pass it on to me.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Brooks

Thank you for your enquiry.

We aim to respond within 20 working days.
If there is likely to be any delay we will contact you to let you know.

show quoted sections

David Winks, Freedom of Information Team, Department of Health

Reference:DE00000407770

Dear Mr Winks

In my recent email I twice referred to the CNHC as the CHNC. Please
accept my apologies for this error. I hope it has not confused you:
the position of the CNHC is quite confusing enough already.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Brooks

Email Content stored in attached file 'Long_Email_Body_10_06_2009.html'.

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

8 July 2009
DE00000412842
Dear Mr Brooks,

Further to my previous email of 10 June, I am now able to respond to your
Freedom of Information request in full and, specifically, to address your
request for any information about the progress which the Complimentary and
Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) has made.
Please find attached three progress reports which have been sent to the
Department of Health by the CNHC. Please note that the names of
individuals have been redacted where necessary, in accordance with section
40 of the FOI Act and as concerning personal information.
I hope this reply is helpful.
If you have any queries about this email, please contact me. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to:

Head of the Freedom of Information Team
Department of Health
Room 317
Richmond House
79 Whitehall,
London
SW1A 2NS

Email: [1][email address]

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally,
the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints
procedure provided by the Department. The ICO can be contacted at:

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

Yours sincerely,

David Winks
Freedom of Information Team
Department of Health

show quoted sections

Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]