Islington Town Hall Auditorium refurbishment

Alex Skene made this Freedom of Information request to Islington Borough Council

The request was successful.

From: Alex Skene

13 March 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would be very grateful if you could provide the following:

1. Copy of the contract with Diamond Build Plc for the
refurbishment of the Islington Town Hall Auditorium.

2. Details of the "additional works to the Islington Town Hall
Auditorium up to a maximum of £400,000" [1]

3. Copy of the tender analysis report from Mouchel (project
architects)

Yours faithfully,

Alex Skene

[1]
<<http://www.islington.gov.uk/democracy/do...>>

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From: Alex Skene

20 April 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please could you provide an update to an FOI request I sent on 13
March which is now overdue.

The information I requested was:

1. Copy of the contract with Diamond Build Plc for the
refurbishment of the Islington Town Hall Auditorium.

2. Details of the "additional works to the Islington Town Hall
Auditorium up to a maximum of £400,000" [1]

3. Copy of the tender analysis report from Mouchel (project
architects)

[1]
http://www.islington.gov.uk/democracy/do...

The original FOI request can be seen here:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/is...

Yours sincerely,

Alex Skene

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From: Mechen, Ailsa
Islington Borough Council

24 April 2009

Attachment Response to FOI 244063 24.04.09.PDF.pdf
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Attachment Appendix A.doc
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Attachment Appendix B.xls
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Attachment Appendix C.xls
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Attachment Front Cover Sheet.pdf
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Attachment Scoring Report.doc
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Attachment Section 1 Preliminaries.pdf
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Attachment Section 2 Daywork and Contingencies.PDF.pdf
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Attachment Section 3 NBS.pdf
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Attachment Section 4 Description of Works.PDF.pdf
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Attachment Section 5 Electrical Engineering Services.PDF.pdf
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Attachment Section 6 Mechanical Engineering Services.PDF.pdf
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Attachment Section 7 Pre construction Information.pdf
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Attachment Section 8 Main Summary.pdf
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Good afternoon

Please find the attached response to your recent Freedom of Information
request. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any further
assistance.

Regards

Ailsa Mechen
Business Development Officer
Finance Department
Second Floor
7 Newington Barrow Way
London
N7 7EP
T: 020 7527 2805
F: 020 7527 2882
E: [1][email address]
W: [2]www.islington.gov.uk

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From: Alex Skene

10 May 2009

Dear Sir/Madam,

FOI ref 244063

Correspondence:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/is...

Please pass on my thanks for all the information provided so far. I
have a few queries with how you've handled my request, and would
like to request an internal review.

- Responses to requests (1) & (3): As you have withheld some
information under FOIA Section 43, you have forgotten to include
the prejudice & public interest tests required under Section 17(3)
of the Act, I would therefore like you to review your decision to
withhold information. In addition, for (1) it is likely that this
contract would be made available to the public for inspection
uncensored, under the rules of the Audit Commission Act 1998.

- Redactions to (1): It is very hard to determine which information
was withheld, I would be very grateful if you could point out the
pages or sections where redaction took place.

- Your reply to (2): The document "Scoring Report.doc" states the
following:

"Given the keenness of tenders received consideration for inclusion
of the following should now be considered:

Upgrading of dressing rooms and improvements to first floor toilet
area's. Replacement of stage curtains rather than simple clean,
Higher specification for audio visual use, upgrading of heating
rather than overhaul. Provision of solar panelling etc.

In addition it is anticipated some downtime could occur due to the
sensitive location of the work and additional funds would allow
`downtime' and potential night working to alleviate potential
nuisance whilst operating from set normal working hour
arrangements"

Is this part of the additional £400,000 to be set aside? If so, you
do hold the information, and I would like you to review what else
you may hold on this.

I would be very grateful if you could acknowledge this request for
internal review.

Kind regards,

Alex Skene

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From: Tuck, Jeremy
Islington Borough Council

12 June 2009

Dear Alex,

My apologies for only getting back to you today, I have only just received
this - for some reason your request had been identified as spam. This is
to inform you that I will be looking at these matters as part of a review
of how this request was dealt with.

Yours sincerely,

Jeremy

Chief Information Officer

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From: Tuck, Jeremy
Islington Borough Council

18 June 2009

Dear Alex,

This is in response to your request for an internal review of how we responded to your Freedom of Information request (our reference 244063). In addition, you raised specific questions about the Council's response.

Firstly I have examined some of the process issues on this request. The response was provided after the statutory limit of 20 working days and is therefore a breach of the Act. Our standard practice is to acknowledge all requests and provide the requestor with a Freedom of Information Reference number. In terms of compliance, the Council takes the matter of compliance very seriously, with regular Freedom of Information Compliance reports going to our Corporate Management Board and devolved responsibility for coordinating requests within all service areas. We apologise for the fact that a response was made later than the statutory deadline and will continue to monitor our internal processes and feed examples like this back in an attempt to improve our internal mechanisms.

In terms of the information requested:

(a) You asked that we review our decision to withhold information for questions (1) and (3).

I have examined our response to you. I uphold the decision that information should be refused and that our reliance on Section 43 was applicable. In terms of Section 43 we withheld the names of unsuccessful bidders and pricing and rates in the contract. They were withheld because the both the council's and unsuccessful bidders' bargaining positions in future tenders or negotiations could have been adversely affected by this information if disclosed.

(b) You asked if we could indicate what pages or sections where redaction took place.

The following redactions were made:
Appendix A - Page 1 - Names of unsuccessful bidders
Appendix B - Table - Names of unsuccessful bidders
Scoring Report - Pages 1 and 2 - Names of unsuccessful bidders
Section 2 - Page 2 - Rates
Section 4 - Page 14 - Rates
Section 6 - Page 85 - Rates

(c) You asked if inclusions that were described are now part of the £400000 to be set aside. In addition, you asked if we hold the information and that you would like to review what else we may hold on this.

Yes, these inclusions are part of the £400,000. It is expected that the additional works will be agreed in the next 6-8 weeks and this is when we would expect to have clearer information about what these are. In terms of any other information you may still be seeking, it would be useful if you provided more detail so we can obtain this information to you.

I hope that the above clarifies the questions you have raised. If you have a complaint about the handling of this review, you are entitled to raise this with the Information Commissioner's Office at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625-545-700
www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

Jeremy

Chief Information Officer
Technology Solutions Group
Islington Council
60 Highbury New Park, London, N5 2DJ

Email: [email address]
Web: www.islington.gov.uk

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