Freedom of Information requests

Dear T Thomas,

Thank you for your request for information below which has been given
reference FOI 1585. Please quote this on any correspondence regarding your
request.

Stockport Council will respond to your request within 20 working days. If
there will be a charge for disbursements e.g. photocopying in order to
provide the information, we will inform you as soon as possible to see if
you wish to proceed; however such charges are usually waived if they
amount to less than £10.

Yours sincerely,

Claire Naven

Claire Naven

Data Protection & Freedom of Information Officer

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council

 

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Dear T Thomas,

I am writing in response to your request for information below (ref 1585).
Please find below Stockport Council's response:

1)how many requests for information under the act has the council

received?

Stockport Council has received 1584 requests for information between
01/01/05 and 13/02/09 (the date of your request). Please note that this
figure includes some requests made under the Data Protection Act 1998 and
the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. These are all recorded on
one system which at present does not have the facility to produce figures
based on the piece of legislation associated with the request.

To provide a figure for requests made under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA) only, we would have to look at each of the 1584 records
individually to see which piece of legislation the request came under. As
you may be aware, under section 12(1) of the FOIA public authorities such
as Stockport Council are not obliged to comply with requests for
information if they estimate that the cost of complying with the request
would exceed the `appropriate limit'. The Freedom of Information and Data
Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 set an
`appropriate limit' of £450 for public authorities outside Central
Government, which equates to 18 hours' work at a statutory rate of £25
per hour. Assuming it would take one minute to check each of the 1584
records, we estimate that locating, retrieving and extracting the
information would exceed the appropriate limit. On this basis, we have not
provided you with this information.

2)how many have times has the council failed to respond within the

statutory 20 day period?

Since April 2008 to 10^th March 2009, the Council has responded to 492 FOI
requests. Responses to 433 of these requests were provided within the
statutory timescale, meaning we were unable to comply with 59 requests
within the 20-working-day timescale during this period.

Please note that the figures referred to above from April 2008 onwards are
recorded separately and are relatively easy to report. We are unable to
provide figures prior to this date for the reasons outlined in the
response to question 1 above. This would involve examining each of the
records to first see whether or not it was made under the FOIA, then see
whether or not the response was sent out within the statutory timescale.
This would clearly exceed the appropriate limit; therefore we have not
provided this information.

3)how many have times has a complaint, about the council, been

submitted to the Information Commissioner's Office?

Since January 2007, our records show that the Information Commissioner's
Office has contacted the Council 10 times in relation to FOIA
complaints/enquiries it has received regarding Stockport Council. The ICO
may have received further complaints or enquiries which it has chosen not
to bring to the attention of the Council; therefore I recommend
redirecting this part of your request to the ICO who may be able to
provide further information. We are unable to provide figures prior to
this date as these were not centrally recorded.

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request you are
entitled to ask for an internal review. Any internal review will be
carried out by a senior member of staff who was not involved with your
original request. To ask for an internal review, contact
[1][email address] in the first instance.

If you are unhappy with the outcome of any internal review, you are
entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner. To do so, contact:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

[2]www.ico.gov.uk

01625 545 745

Yours sincerely,

Claire Naven

Claire Naven

Data Protection & Freedom of Information Officer

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council

 

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