List of I.T Suppliers & costs

Dear Mr Connely

Re: request for information under The Freedom of Information Act.

In your request for information dated 11 August 2009 you asked for a complete list of suppliers/contractors and consultants that have been used over the past year when procuring I.T. hardware and the total spend on I.T. hardware during the past year. You also ask for a breakdown of this hardware spend showing what brand servers, networking and desktop hardware were purchased with a spend amount in each segment.

Additionally you ask for full details of the person(s) who conduct the I.T. purchasing there.

The University of Birmingham responds:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 the Act states that an enquirer is entitled:

* To be told whether the information which they are requesting exists, and if it does
* Receive a copy of that data unless one of the limited exemptions under the Act applies.

a. The University of Birmingham has taken the meaning of IT Hardware to include PCs, Laptops and Servers etc. The following are the main 13 suppliers which the University of Birmingham uses to supply hardware.

Apple

Dell

DCS

Getech

Insight

OCF

PCW

Prolinx

Q Associates

SCC

Stone

Viglen

XMA

b. With regard to the total spend on IT hardware in the past year; the University does not hold this information centrally. The University has devolved budgets with individual budget centres being responsible for their own expenditure on ICT. Please see the refusal notice below which explains why this information has not been provided.

c. Please see the refusal notice below for an explanation of why a breakdown of hardware spend has not been provided.

d. Please see the refusal notice below for an explanation of why details of individuals responsible for purchasing IT have not been disclosed.

Refusal Notice

Section 12 - Freedom of Information Act 2000

We estimate that the cost of complying with these parts of your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for Local Authorities is £450.00. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3½ working days in determining whether the University holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

It should be noted that The University of Birmingham has 28 Principlal Academic Units (PAUs) situated within 5 Colleges. These PAUs are all budget holders, therefore your request will need to be circulated to each PAU asking whether they hold information which meets the criteria of your request.

Additionally the University's central "Corporate Services" are made up of 12 separate budget centres each being responsible for their own IT purchasing.

If you were to make a new request for a narrower category of information, it may be that we could comply with that request within the appropriate limit, although I cannot guarantee that this will be the case.

If you are unhappy with the manner in which your request has been dealt with, you may ask for an internal review. A copy of the Complaints and Appeals procedure can be found at: http://www.legalservices.bham.ac.uk/foi/.... If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have a right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.

If you have any queries with regard to this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

FOIA Officer
The University of Birmingham

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