Dear Sir or Madam,

or all Freedom of Information Act requests made to you from 01 01
09 to 22 05 09, please provide the following:

1) Date requested

2) Allocated request number/reference

2) Summary of information requested

3) If denied, please give summary of reason(s)

4) Number of working days to complete

please indicate whether any request was made by:

Letter

Fax

Email

Through the whatdotheyknow.com website

Any other web site: Please provide details of it's www domain name
(such as whatdotheyknow.com)

Other method: Please indicate

Yours faithfully,

Ben Ingram

Brent Council - INFORMATION REQUEST

Our Reference: 500834
====================================================

Dear Mr. Ingram

Thank you for your request for information received on 22 May 2009. We aim
to respond to your request within 20 working days.

Brent ITU
--
The use of Brent Council's e-mail system may be monitored and communications read in order to secure effective operation of the system and other lawful purposes.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Overdue reminder

Yours sincerely,

Ben Ingram

Brent Borough Council

22 May 2009

Brent Council - INFORMATION REQUEST

Our Reference: 500834
====================================================

Dear Mr. Ingram

Thank you for your request for information received on 22 May 2009.
We aim
to respond to your request within 20 working days.

Brent ITU
--
The use of Brent Council's e-mail system may be monitored and
communications read in order to secure effective operation of the
system and other lawful purposes.

Brent Council - INFORMATION REQUEST

Our Reference: 500048
====================================================

Dear Mr. Ingram,

I refer to the request for information you made on 18th May concerning the
Council's response to request 472001 and write to respond and to apologise
for the delay.

I deal with each of your questions below.

You asked firstly:

On the Brent Council FOIA request response Ref: 472001, URL of and quote
therefrom below, please provide me with a copy of any information or
evidence held, such as Internal Guidance/Memos/Emails/Procedures/Policies,
or produced by Brent Council that indicates FOIA requests via
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com, other similar "sites", or directly via any
person could be refused under the FOIA on the basis that
it:

1) "...forms part of a campaign"

as is claimed by Brent Council:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ag...

Please advise on which section(s) of the FOIA or any related Published in
the Public domain guidance clearly states that a FOIA request can be refused
"outright" on the basis that it "...forms
part of a campaign"

This information is not held since there is no such section. But I am
afraid you have misread the letter since it does not say anything about
outright refusals. The intention of the response was to explain why the
request was invalid (real name not used) and to explain why this is of
concern. I am sorry if it failed to do this. The concern was that the use
of false names on sites like that in question could make it more difficult
for the authority to recognise requests which it might otherwise judge to be
vexatious when it was able to link the requests to particular persons. This
is not an objection to the legitimate use of such sites and as you will know
the authority responds to requests made on the whatdotheyknow site where it
has no reason to suspect the use of a pseudonym.

I would point out that section 12 of the Act does employ the word campaign
but the response was not intended to refer to section 12 since the
regulations make its use dependent on there being similar content.

You also asked

On the Brent Council FOIA request response Ref: 472001, URL above, it
implies that Brent Council "...is concerned" that "sites" such as 'what do
they know' could facilitate the making of requests
which might otherwise be refused. Please provide me with the names/a list of
these "sites" that Brent Council "...is concerned" about.

This information is not held. There is no such list and again this is to
misread the response which seeks to explain a concern about the potential
for misuse of such sites.

Finally you asked:

On the Brent Council FOIA request response Ref: 472001, the requester is
asked for their Passport or a Utility Bill, please
advise which Section of the FOIA makes such a request legitimate and or copy
of any information or evidence held, such as Internal
Guidance/Memos/Emails/Procedures/Polices, held or produced by Brent Council
that indicates a Passport or Utility Bill can be requested and how such a
request would be compatible with the Data Protection Act, or represents a
form of common or good practice agreed
formally by Brent Council.

Section 8 (1) of the Act states that a request for information must state
the name of the applicant. A link to the Commissioner's guidance on this
issue was provided with the response to request 472001. There is no
internal guidance on proof of identity in connection with FOI requests but
asking for such proofs is standard procedure in relation to subject access
requests. There is no breach of the Data Protection Act as long as the data
protection principles are complied with.

Please note that the information provided may be subject to copyright and
you may require further permission from the Council to re-use it. If you
require further guidance please write to the IT Standards Manager (contact
details below).

If you are dissatisfied with the response or how the Council has handled
your request you can complain to the Council by writing to the following
address: IT Standards Manager at Brent Council, Room 105, Brent Town Hall,
Forty Lane, Wembley, Middlesex HA9 9HD, telephone 020 8937 1402, e-mail
[Brent Borough Council request email]. It is the Council's policy to ensure that, where
practicable, your complaint is dealt with by someone who was not involved in
the original decision.

You also have a right of appeal about our decision to the Information
Commissioner, however, the Information Commissioner will not normally
consider an appeal until you have exhausted your rights of redress and
complaint to the Council. The Information Commissioner can be contacted as
follows:
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF; Telephone: 01625 545 700,
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Stephen F Williams,
For Brent ITU
[email address]
--
The use of Brent Council's e-mail system may be monitored and communications read in order to secure effective operation of the system and other lawful purposes.

-

Brent Council - INFORMATION REQUEST

Our Reference: 500834
====================================================

Dear Mr. Ingram

I refer to the request for information you made on 22nd May concerning
Freedom of Information requests received by Brent Council in 2009 and am
writing to respond and to apologise for the delay in doing so.

Following careful consideration, I regret to inform you that, in
accordance with Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we have
decided not to disclose this information because we estimate that doing so
is likely to exceed the Appropriate Limit. For Local Government this is
set at *450, calculated at *25 per person hour giving 18 hours to identify
whether the information is held and retrieving and extracting it.

The information you have requested is held within the Council's request
management system but this does not include a report that would enable us
to extract all of the information you have requested. Commissioning a
report to achieve this and editing extraneous data would exceed the
Appropriate Limit.

However, we have considered what information we can provide within the
Appropriate Limit and are attaching a report showing details of the
requests received in the time period and as much information available in
summary form about the response made. We would advise that this report
contains only the raw data as input into the request tracking system and
has not been verified. Performance statistics are produced and verified
on an annual basis approximately 6 months after the end of the calendar
year.

If you are dissatisfied with the response or how the Council has handled
your request you can complain to the Council by writing to the following
address: IT Standards Manager at Brent Council, Room 105, Brent Town Hall,
Forty Lane, Wembley, Middlesex HA9 9HD, telephone 020 8937 1402, e-mail
[Brent Borough Council request email]. It is the Council's policy to ensure that, where
practicable, your complaint is dealt with by someone who was not involved
in the original decision.

Please note that the information provided may be subject to copyright and
you may require further permission from the Council to re-use it. If you
require further guidance please write to the IT Standards Manager (contact
details below).

You also have a right of appeal about our decision to the Information
Commissioner, however, the Information Commissioner will not normally
consider an appeal until you have exhausted your rights of redress and
complaint to the Council. The Information Commissioner can be contacted as
follows:
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF; Telephone: 01625 545 700,
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Stephen F Williams
for Brent ITU
[email address]

Ben Ingram To FOI requests at Brent
<[FOI #12314 email]> Borough Council
<[Brent Borough Council request email]>
22/05/2009 01:36 cc
Subject Freedom of Information
request - Freedom of
Information Act
requests made to you
from 01 01 09 to 22 05
09

Dear Sir or Madam,

or all Freedom of Information Act requests made to you from 01 01
09 to 22 05 09, please provide the following:

1) Date requested

2) Allocated request number/reference

2) Summary of information requested

3) If denied, please give summary of reason(s)

4) Number of working days to complete

please indicate whether any request was made by:

Letter

Fax

Email

Through the whatdotheyknow.com website

Any other web site: Please provide details of it's www domain name
(such as whatdotheyknow.com)

Other method: Please indicate

Yours faithfully,

Ben Ingram

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be
published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about...

Is [Brent Borough Council request email] the wrong address for Freedom of Information
requests to Brent Borough Council? If so please contact us using
this form: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/contact
-------------------------------------------------------------------

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The use of Brent Council's e-mail system may be monitored and communications read in order to secure effective operation of the system and other lawful purposes.

-

Brent Council - INFORMATION REQUEST

Our Reference: 500834
====================================================

Dear Mr. Ingram

I refer to the request for information you made on 22nd May concerning
Freedom of Information requests received by Brent Council in 2009 and am
writing to respond and to apologise for the delay in doing so.

Following careful consideration, I regret to inform you that, in
accordance with Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we have
decided not to disclose this information because we estimate that doing so
is likely to exceed the Appropriate Limit. For Local Government this is
set at *450, calculated at *25 per person hour giving 18 hours to identify
whether the information is held and retrieving and extracting it.

The information you have requested is held within the Council's request
management system but this does not include a report that would enable us
to extract all of the information you have requested. Commissioning a
report to achieve this and editing extraneous data would exceed the
Appropriate Limit.

However, we have considered what information we can provide within the
Appropriate Limit and are attaching a report showing details of the
requests received in the time period and as much information available in
summary form about the response made. We would advise that this report
contains only the raw data as input into the request tracking system and
has not been verified. Performance statistics are produced and verified
on an annual basis approximately 6 months after the end of the calendar
year.

If you are dissatisfied with the response or how the Council has handled
your request you can complain to the Council by writing to the following
address: IT Standards Manager at Brent Council, Room 105, Brent Town Hall,
Forty Lane, Wembley, Middlesex HA9 9HD, telephone 020 8937 1402, e-mail
[Brent Borough Council request email]. It is the Council's policy to ensure that, where
practicable, your complaint is dealt with by someone who was not involved
in the original decision.

Please note that the information provided may be subject to copyright and
you may require further permission from the Council to re-use it. If you
require further guidance please write to the IT Standards Manager (contact
details below).

You also have a right of appeal about our decision to the Information
Commissioner, however, the Information Commissioner will not normally
consider an appeal until you have exhausted your rights of redress and
complaint to the Council. The Information Commissioner can be contacted as
follows:
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF; Telephone: 01625 545 700,
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Stephen F Williams
for Brent ITU
[email address]

Ben Ingram To FOI requests at Brent
<[FOI #12314 email]> Borough Council
<[Brent Borough Council request email]>
22/05/2009 01:36 cc
Subject Freedom of Information
request - Freedom of
Information Act
requests made to you
from 01 01 09 to 22 05
09

Dear Sir or Madam,

or all Freedom of Information Act requests made to you from 01 01
09 to 22 05 09, please provide the following:

1) Date requested

2) Allocated request number/reference

2) Summary of information requested

3) If denied, please give summary of reason(s)

4) Number of working days to complete

please indicate whether any request was made by:

Letter

Fax

Email

Through the whatdotheyknow.com website

Any other web site: Please provide details of it's www domain name
(such as whatdotheyknow.com)

Other method: Please indicate

Yours faithfully,

Ben Ingram

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be
published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about...

Is [Brent Borough Council request email] the wrong address for Freedom of Information
requests to Brent Borough Council? If so please contact us using
this form: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/contact
-------------------------------------------------------------------

--
The use of Brent Council's e-mail system may be monitored and communications read in order to secure effective operation of the system and other lawful purposes.