Extraordinary Council Meeting of 16 April

David Hopson made this Freedom of Information request to West Wittering Parish Council

The request was partially successful.

From: David Hopson

11 June 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please can you provide me with the following information under the
Freedom Of Information Act 2000:-

Copies of all email correspondence (including any attachments), and
documents relating or referring to the agenda, minutes, and any
actions following the Extraordinary Meeting of the Parish Council,
held on Thursday, 16th April 2009 in the Sports Pavilion,Rookwood
Road, West Wittering.

A list of any paper based correspondence (including date, name of
correspondent, and whether sent or received) relating or referring
to the same meeting.

Yours faithfully,

David Hopson

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David Hopson left an annotation (16 June 2009)

WWPC have objected to the use of WhatDoTheyKnow.com (WDTK) as a medium for making FOI requests, and are currently refusing to reply through this site. The Parish Clerk insists on communicating only through another email address that she has for me.

I raised this with WDTK who advised using annotations to show the correspondence, and sending a follow up through WDTK specifically requesting that communication should go through this site.

This I am now doing.

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David Hopson left an annotation (16 June 2009)

from JOANNE BROWN
to David Hopson
date 12 June 2009 12:33
subject FOI request

Dear David

I acknowledge receipt of your FOI request.

I will collate the information you require and let you have this within the 28 day deadline.

Regards

Joanne

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David Hopson left an annotation (16 June 2009)

from David Hopson
to JOANNE BROWN
date 12 June 2009 14:25
subject Re: FOI request

Dear Joanne

Please note that the request to which I believe you refer has been made in the name of David Hopson through www.whatdotheyknow.com. Responses and replies should be made to the address in the email which notified you of the request. If you do not do this, the public record will show that WWPC has failed to respond to the request. Persons making FOI requests are entitled to specify the address they wish to use for correspondence, and that address may be an email address.

As a vehicle through which to make requests, whatdotheyknow.com allows the public to be confident that the correspondence and information which they publish in respect of an FOI request has not been subject to modification or editing by anyone. In the current circumstances I believe it is essential that nobody should be in a position to question whether or not documentary evidence has been altered.

wbw

David

This email has been posted to http://wwpcmailstore.blogspot.com/

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David Hopson left an annotation (16 June 2009)

from JOANNE BROWN
to David Hopson
date 12 June 2009 16:06
subject RE: FOI request

Dear David,

Thank you for your e mail.

The deadline for this information to be given to you is 20 working days (not 28 as I stated earlier) starting the day after the request was received, which I make 9th July. I
will therefore ensure the information requested is sent to you by this date.

I am not aware of anything in the Act which compels the Council to reply to a web site instead of to the applicant. I only have to be sure that the address that I use is the person making the request. As you have replied to my e mail its clear I do have the right person.

You have asked for a list of any paper based correspondence (including date, name of correspondent, and whether sent or received) relating or referring to the same meeting.

Please note no such list exists so I cannot send you it.

The Council is entitled to make a charge for FOI requests and I will let you know what this charge will be after discussion with the Council.

Regards

Joanne

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David Hopson left an annotation (16 June 2009)

from David Hopson
to JOANNE BROWN
date 12 June 2009 17:31
subject Re: FOI request

Without Prejudice ...

You may find the following links useful

http://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/faqs/freedo... - the information commissioner's take on charging.

And this one from the Campaign for Freedom of Information http://www.cfoi.org.uk/pdf/foi_guide.pdf

And this from the Act
Means by which communication to be made.
11. (1) Where, on making his request for information, the applicant expresses a preference
for communication by --> any one or more <-- of the following means, namely-
(a) the provision to the applicant of a copy of the information in permanent form or
in another form acceptable to the applicant,
(b) the provision to the applicant of a reasonable opportunity to inspect a record
containing the information, and
(c) the provision to the applicant of a digest or summary of the information in
permanent form or in another form acceptable to the applicant,
--> the public authority shall so far as reasonably practicable give effect to that preference.<--
(--> my emphasis <--)

This email has been posted to http://wwpcmailstore.blogspot.com/

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David Hopson left an annotation (16 June 2009)

from JOANNE BROWN
to David Hopson
date 15 June 2009 12:26
subject FOI request

Dear David,

Further to my e mail dated 12th June 2006 I confirm that there will not be any charge for providing the information requested.

I am currently collating this and will contact you again when it is to hand.

Regards

Joanne

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From: David Hopson

16 June 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

This is a follow up to my request for information under the FoIA,
which I sent using the services of whatdotheyknow.com - WDTK (see
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ex...)

The Act provides that, "where, on making his request for
information, the applicant expresses a preference for communication
by any one or more of the following means ... the public authority
shall so far as reasonably practicable give effect to that
preference."

In the interests of openness, transparency and accountability, I
have a strong preference for communications in respect of my FoIA
request to be handled via the email address or any other method
provided for reply through WDTK.

I have added, as annotations, our correspondence outside WDTK, and
will add any future communications if you are of the view that it
is not 'reasonably practicable' to give effect to my preference
and/or that the act imposes no legal requirement on you to do this.

WDTK is part of http://www.mysociety.org/, the UK's best known and
highly respected online democracy organisation. I cannot conceive
of any reason, practical, ethical or political why WWPC should
refuse to communicate on FoIA requests using this service, and
would welcome your assurance that you will do so in the future.

Yours sincerely,

David Hopson

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From: David Hopson

6 July 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

On 11 June 2009 I requested:
"Copies of all email correspondence (including any attachments),
and documents relating or referring to the agenda, minutes, and any
actions following the Extraordinary Meeting of the Parish Council,
held on Thursday, 16th April 2009 in the Sports Pavilion,Rookwood
Road, West Wittering."

I acknowledge receipt of a CD from you. The CD contains a single
ASCII file (http://bit.ly/OZmsb) which appears to include text that
has been extracted from email correspondence. In places the
extracted text makes reference to email attachments, or which there
is no sign on the CD.

An item of email correspondence includes its header, header fields,
message body, and attachments (if any). The CD you provided does
not contain copies of email correspondence.

I acknowledge receipt of a photocopy from you, headed Clerks Minute
Book. This photocopy has, on alternate pages, chopped off a left
and right hand portion of text so that it is impossible to know
with any certainty either who is recorded as saying something (LH
clipped), or what someone is saying (RH clipped). The photocopy is
therefore unusable.

I do not consider that you have provided the information that was
requested. I would remind you that you have until July 9th to
provide this information.

Yours faithfully,

David Hopson

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David Hopson left an annotation ( 7 July 2009)

WWPC refuse to acknowledge WhatDoTheyKnow.com (see above)
from JOANNE BROWN
to David Hopson
date 6 July 2009 14:50
subject FOI request

Dear David,

I have checked the information that you requested with particular reference to e mail attachments. There are two attachments which you will not already have had access to or already been sent, these are those attached to Keith Martin’s e mail of 24th April 2009 which refers to the resolutions tabled by the Chairman and also a draft agenda referred to in the e mail dated 6th April 2009.

I am sorry that the photocopy quality of my minute notes is not up to standard, I will re copy the book and send you the copies along with the copies of the attachments.

Regards

Joanne

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From: David Hopson

7 July 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your reply.

I note that WWPC continues to ignore my request for communication
via WhatDoTheyKnow.com despite the fact that in law “the public
authority shall so far as reasonably practicable give effect to” my
preference.

I shall be pleased to receive a legible photocopy of the Minute
Book entry.

You seem to imply in your note that WWPC considers the ASCII text
file containing what appears to be Message Body content from email
correspondence constitutes the copies that have been requested.
This concerns me given the limited time now left before the
deadline. I would be grateful for your reassurance on this matter,
and would reiterate what I said previously: “An item of email
correspondence includes its header, header fields, message body,
and attachments (if any). The CD you provided does
not contain copies of email correspondence.”

Similarly, you seem to imply that you are sending paper
representations of attachments. A printout is not a copy of an
‘electronic’ document as it excludes a large amount of information
about the document’s context and origins. An email attachment saved
out to disc is modified on export, and is also not a true copy of
the original.

I am concerned about the amount of time which may have been spent
on this request. The supplied ASCII text file appears to define the
list of relevant email correspondence items. To supply this
correspondence in native format should not take more than a few
minutes, and at negligible cost if transmitted online.

Yours faithfully,

David Hopson

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David Hopson left an annotation ( 8 July 2009)

from JOANNE BROWN
<wwpc@redhouse100.freeserve.co.uk>
to David Hopson
date 7 July 2009 16:05
subject FOI request

Dear David,

As you are already aware, I have consulted with the ICO to ensure that the Parish Council meets its requirements for disclosing information.

As I have stated to you, and based on advice from the ICO, the Parish Council is not compelled to reply to any request for information via a web site, more importantly though it is required to make sure that it replies to the person requesting the information, which is what I have done.

I have had to check and collate all the information you have requested which has taken a considerable amount of time. I have spoken to the ICO today, and they have confirmed that the copies of all e mails that I gave you on CD are deemed acceptable copies. I have already apologised for the quality of the photocopy of my minute book. I have photocopied this item again and will hand deliver it to your home address tomorrow, Weds 8th July.

I also attach as requested copies of the missing 2 attachments.

Regards

Joanne

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Things to do with this request

Anyone:
West Wittering Parish Council only: