Instructions to appeal panel on 20 May 2008

Dear Sir or Madam,

There was an aborted appeal hearing for an appeal against the
outcome of the recent "assimilation to the new grading structure
and single salary spine exercise" on 20 May 2008 at 2pm in the
Council Room of the University. At this aborted hearing the
appellant notified the Chairman of the appeal panel that they
wished to record the public part of the hearing, in accordance with
the advance notification of this intention they had provided to the
University's HR Division.

On being informed of this, the Chairman waved a piece of paper at
the appellant (who was unable to see this what, if anything, was
written on this piece of paper). The Chairman informed the
appellant that they had been instructed by the Personnel Department
that the appeal could not proceed if the appellant insisted on
recording it.

Please supply a copy, in electronic form, of the instructions from
the University's HR Division to the appeal panel (and/or any or all
of the individual panel members) regarding the recording of the
appeal hearing.

Should these instructions contain information which could not be
revealed to me under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998,
such information is to be redacted.

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles

Dear Sir or Madam,

As you will no doubt be aware, the response of your predecessor to
the "substantially similar request" to which you refer
(FOI/2008/75) did not supply any information. It was, in effect, a
refusal notice, but one which did not specify the exemption under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which was being used to refuse
to provide the information, as required by Section 17(1) of the
Act. Therefore, that request was not properly handled under the
Act.

Consequently, the University has *not* complied with my previous
request for information (as that previous request was not handled
properly under the terms of the Act) and Section 14(2) is therefore
not engaged in relation to this request, since that section is only
engaged where the public authority "has previously complied with a
request for information", which is not the case here.

Furthermore, Section 14(2) is only engaged if a reasonable interval
between requests has *not* elapsed - as you know, almost a full
calendar year has elapsed between the previous request and this one
and in that time the person who handles FOI requests has changed.
It therefore seems reasonable that, even if the University had
properly handled the previous request by stating the exemption(s)
on which it was relying to refuse that request (which it didn't),
it should be prepared to consider afresh this new "substantially
similar request".

I had hoped that the University would be reasonable in its handling
of this current request (FOI-2009-57), and consequently did not
bring up the subject of request FOI/2008/75 in making it. If,
however, you are not prepared to handle this request properly, then
please pass the following on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews:

I am writing to request an internal review of University of
Cambridge's handling of my FOI request 'Instructions to appeal
panel on 20 May 2008'. I also wish to request an internal review of
a previous request (FOI/2008/75) (the details of which the
University has on file).

A full history of this current FOI request (FOI-2009-57) and all
correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/in...

I wish the handling of this request (FOI-2009-57) to be reviewed as
I do not believe that Section 14(2) of the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 is engaged for two reasons:

(1) The previous "substantially similar request" was not correctly
handled under the Act (see complaint below), and so the University
did not comply with it as is required for Section 14(2) to be
engaged in respect of future requests; and

(2) Particularly in light of the change of personnel handling FOI
requests, a reasonable time interval (almost a year) has elapsed
since the previous "substantially similar request" and this one.

I also wish to complain that the University did not respond to my
request FOI-2009-57 within 20 working days as required by Section
10(1) of the Act, since 20 working days from the date I e-mailed my
request is 2 June 2009, and the University did not respond until 3
June 2009. Note that Awareness Guidance No 11 (Time for compliance)
issued by the Information Commissioner

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

states:

"3. When is a request received by the public authority?

A request is received when it is delivered to the public authority,
or when it is delivered to the inbox of a member of staff. The date
of receipt is not the date the request is passed to the appropriate
person for processing."

It is thus clear that neither the date on which the relevant
individual checked the relevant inbox nor the date on which the
University acknowledged the request is in any way relevant to when
the 20 working days from receipt of the request expires.

Furthermore, Section 10(1) requires the University to respond to my
request "promptly" - given that the University has refused to
provide the requested information on the basis that I had made a
previous "substantially similar request", 21 working days can
hardly be described as "prompt".

I also wish to request a review of the handling of my previous FOI
request, FOI/2008/75, as this request was refused but without any
of the Act's exemptions being given as grounds for this refusal.
This is in clear breach of Section 17(1) of the Act.

Finally, I would remind you that the Information Commissioner's
Office has already had occasion to communicate with the University
regarding its failure to carry out internal reviews of FOI requests
in a reasonable time period (ICO Case Reference Number FS50246295).
I would hope, therefore, that this request for an internal review
would be handled in accordance with the Information Commissioner's
guidance regarding the time limits on carrying out internal reviews
(Good Practice Guidance 5):

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

Dear Dr Allen,

Thank you for your response, which has finally dealt with my
request in accordance with the terms of the Freedom of Information
Act (2000). In particular, thank you for your efforts to discharge
the University's duty under Section 16 of the Act, something
notably absent from the handling of the earlier request
(FOI/2008/75). I can now state that at this time I do not wish to
initiate a formal review of the handling of either this request or
the earlier request (FOI/2008/75).

However, notwithstanding my lack of desire to initiate a formal
review, I do not accept the arguments advanced in your response
regarding the use of Section 14(2) and the claim that request
FOI/2008/75 did not fail to comply with Section 17(1).

It should be apparent from both the wording of this request and of
FOI/2008/75 that, at best, the information that was in my
possession was the Chairman of the appeal panel's *interpretation*
of instructions from the HR Division. I have no way of knowing
whether that interpretation is either correct or complete, which is
why I asked for a copy of the instructions themselves.

It is clear from my request that I do not possess the *document*
that I have asked for, and so to refuse to supply it on the grounds
that I already have it is unreasonable as well as factually
incorrect. As you know, paragraph 6 of the Explanatory Notes of the
Act [1], as well as the Information Commissioner [2], take the view
that the Act entitles me to copies of documents, not just the
information contained therein.

If you believe that it is genuinely the case that the Act allows
you to refuse documents on the grounds that the requester may
already have the information contained within them, I would
appreciate it if you would cite the relevant part of the Act. If
you do not do so, I must warn you that should you attempt to refuse
a future FOI request from myself on such grounds, I will take the
matter to the Information Commissioner (after exhausting the
University's FOI complaints procedure).

Finally, I would like to contrast your behaviour in handling my
request with that of your predecessor:

Your predecessor refused to supply the document requested without
citing an exemption (in clear violation of Section 17(1) of the
Act), and did not discharge the University's duty to provide advice
and assistance under Section 16 of the Act.

In contrast, you have informed me that the document in question
does not exist, thus fulfilling the obligations under Section
1(1)(a) of the Act and have also done an admirable job of
discharging the University's duty to provide advice and assistance
under Section 16 of the Act.

This seems to me to provide a practical demonstration of the
validity of my argument that a change of personnel constitutes a
reasonable interval between substantially similar requests. A
logical consequence of the belief that a change of personnel does
*not* constitute a reasonable interval is that the expected
behaviour in relation to fulfilling the request would be identical,
regardless of the personnel handling the request.

Yet that is not what has happened here. Thus, should you use this
"no reasonable interval has elapsed" argument in relation to future
requests from myself, I will be only too happy to seek
clarification on this point from the Information Commissioner
(after exhausting the University's FOI complaints procedure).

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

[1] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2000/en/...

[2] See, for example, paragraph 18 of the following Decision
Notice:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/d...