Internal Audit Update 2009

Dear University of Glasgow,

On 8 June 2009 you sent me a report entitled Internal Audit 2007/08
having previously sent me the first 2 pages of the report in
response to an earlier request.

Can you please send me the equivalent report for 2008/09 ie the
complete report and not just the first 2 pages.

Yours faithfully,

Diane Scott

Dear FOI Office,

Thank you for your letter of 26 Jan which says that you are
"collating" your response to my request.

Can you please explain why this is necessary? I have asked for a
single report which is presumably held within your recordsw
management system. I don't understand why a process of collation is
necessary and what material you are collating.

Yours sincerely,

Diane Scott

Dear FOI Office,

Can you please give an indication of when you will respond to this
request?

Yours sincerely,

Diane Scott

Dear University of Glasgow,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of University of
Glasgow's handling of my FOI request 'Internal Audit Update 2009'.

Can you please review why it took the university longer than the
maximum time allowed by law to answer this request and see if there
are lessons that can be learned to prevent further transgressions
in future?

Can you also review the reasons for withholding information. The
university says that release of this information would cause severe
damage to its commercial interests but the public interest in
disclosure its slight. I think this is logically incorrect. If
there is information that if it was made public would cause this
enormous damage then surely the public interest in disclosure must
be substantial due to the fact that the University including the
vet school receives millions of pounds each year from taxpayers.

Also you state

"The disclosure of the requested
information, at this time, would be likely to be detrimental to the
public interest by inhibiting
organisations from entering into relationships and working with the
Faculty and the University.
This in turn would threaten a major source of clinical income and
could lead to the gaining of
competitive advantage by rivals. This possible failure to achieve
maximum income potential
would substantially prejudice the commercial interests of the
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
and the University of Glasgow."

Aren't you actually letting the cat out of the bag already by
admitting that on a website that is open to the public? Surely any
organisation that was thinking about entering such an arrangement
would already be put off by the seriousness of the disclosure that
you have just made. If the weaknesses that your auditors have
identified are so dreadful then it must be the case that any
organisation that might be inhibited by the disclosure of the
detail of these weaknesses will already have been inhibited by the
fact that you are acknowledging both the fact of these weaknesses
and their extreme seriousness on a publicly available website.

I think that it must be in your interests and also the public
interest to disclose the detail now because there is a big danger
that people will believe that they are actually worse than they
really are.

I notice that your decisions have been subject to a lot of appeals
in the past. I hope you don't mind me saying but very often your
response to the appeal does not answer the points that the person
making the appeal has made and just says that the person reviewing
the decision believes that the right decision was made.

I am fairly sure that you will reject this appeal like you have
rejected all of the others but if you do can you please analyse the
argument that I have made above and tell me where you disagree with
the logic that I am putting forward.

Can you also tell me the name of the person conducting the appeal
and give me details of the experience (including any formal
training) that they have in the operation of the Freedom of
Information Act.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/in...

Yours faithfully,

Diane Scott