Noise Complaint Statistics

The request was refused by Camden Borough Council.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Can you please provide me with the following information:

i) The number of noise incidents reported to your 'Noise Team' or 'Noise Patrol' officers in the last 12 months.

ii) The number of times your 'Noise Team' or 'Noise Patrol' officers failed to, or were unable to, attend a reported incident.

iii) The reasons for failing to attend, or being unable to attend, such reported incidents, for example; staff sickness, high levels of incidents or lack of resources etc.

iv) The annual budget allocated to the Camden 'Noise Team' or 'Noise Patrol' unit?

v) The Council policy that regulates and defines how the 'Noise Team' or 'Noise Patrol' operates within the Borough?

vi) The number of complaints made against the Camden 'Noise Team' or 'Noise Patrol' for failing to carry out their duties effectively and the outcome of those complaints?

Yours faithfully,

James Martin

Gough, Judy, Camden Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Martin

Please find attached the acknowledgement to your Freedom of Information
request to Camden RFI/04294 Martin - Noise Complaints.

Please contact me if you have any difficulties in opening the attachment.

Judy Gough
Records & Information Access Officer
Camden corporate ICT
Organisation development
London Borough of Camden

Fax: 020 7974 6192
Web: [1]camden.gov.uk

1st Floor
Roy Shaw Centre
3 - 5 Cressy Road
London NW3 2ND

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References

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1. http://www.camden.gov.uk/

Warby, Michael, Camden Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Martin,

Please find attached the reply to your Freedom of Information request to
Camden RFI/04294

Please contact me if you have any difficulties in opening the attachment.

Kind Regards

Michael Warby
Access to Information Officer - FOI & DPA
Camden Corporate ICT
Organisation Development
London Borough of Camden

Telephone: 020 7974 7857
Web: [1]camden.gov.uk

Roy Shaw Centre
3 - 5 Cressy Road
London NW3 2ND

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James Martin left an annotation ()

27 April 2009

Ref: RFI/04294

Dear Mr Martin

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

Thank you for your recent Freedom of Information request received on 09 April 2009.

Your request has been considered and the information is below.

You requested the following information:

i) The number of noise incidents reported to your 'Noise Team' or
'Noise Patrol' officers in the last 12 months.

ii) The number of times your 'Noise Team' or 'Noise Patrol'
officers failed to, or were unable to, attend a reported incident.

iii) The reasons for failing to attend, or being unable to attend,
such reported incidents, for example; staff sickness, high levels
of incidents or lack of resources etc.

iv) The annual budget allocated to the Camden 'Noise Team' or
'Noise Patrol' unit?

v) The Council policy that regulates and defines how the 'Noise
Team' or 'Noise Patrol' operates within the Borough?

vi) The number of complaints made against the Camden 'Noise Team'
or 'Noise Patrol' for failing to carry out their duties effectively
and the outcome of those complaints?

Your request has now been considered and we are unable to provide you with the information you have requested.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST
Costs exceeds Appropriate Limit
Under section 12 of the Act, the Council is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the costs of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 has set the appropriate limit as £450 based on a charge at £25 per hour.

The estimated time likely to be spent by the Council on the request and costs are as follows:

Determining whether the Council hold the information:

Searching the manual and electronic records of the Council to determine whether the information is held.

Time: 0 hours

Locating the information or documents containing the information:

Time: 0 hours

Retrieving such information or documents:

Retrieving all manual and electronic information held in the Council relating to your request including archived correspondence files and electronic records

Time: 0 hours

Extracting the information from documents and files containing it (including editing or redacting information):

Time: 30 hours

Total time = 30 Hours
Total cost = £750.00

You may wish to narrow and resubmit your request so that it falls within the “appropriate limit”.

Dear Sir or Madam,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Camden Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Noise Complaint Statistics'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/no...

Whilst I appreciate that some of my request may be time consuming I do not agree with your estimate of 30 hours; suggesting all most a weeks work for one individual.

I also cannot see any reason for failing to provide me with the annual cost of the 'Noise Team' within Camden as this would simply be a minor accounting item related to an allocation of funds.

Finally you have failed to provide the policy document I requested and again this would be a relatively minor issue given that all Camden Policies are maintained in an electronic format and readily accessible with a 'press of a button' by a member of your staff.

I look forward to receiving the information requested.

Yours sincerely,

James Martin

Swingler, Peter, Camden Borough Council

1 Attachment

Please refer to the attached acknowledgement reply
Peter Swingler
obo Internal Review Panel
FOI Act
LB of Camden
15/5/09

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James Martin left an annotation ()

Date: 15 May 2009

Ref: RFI/04294

Enquiries: Peter Swingler

Email: xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx.xx

Mr James Martin

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx

Dear Mr Martin

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - Request for information on Noise Complaint Statistics - Application for Internal Review

Thank you for your email dated 13 May 2009.

The Internal Review Panel will consider your appeal at its session on 10 June 2009. I will let you know the outcome thereafter.

The Act defines a number of exemptions, some of which are subject to a public interest test that may prevent release of the information. You will be informed if this is the case, and you have a right to appeal against our decision. Information relating to this will be included in any refusal notice issued.

If the information you request contains reference to a third party then they may be consulted prior to a decision being taken on whether or not to release the information to you.

If you have any queries or concerns then please contact me at the address above.

Further information is also available from the Information Commissioner at: Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Peter Swingler

On behalf of the Internal Review Panel

Freedom of Information Act

T. Morgan left an annotation ()

Camden Councils FOI review team are not independent of the council and are in my experience highly bias so good luck in obtaining the information you are after.

Alex Skene left an annotation ()

Take a look at this request on Section 12 rejections and counting the time taken to do redactions - the ICO guidance is different to that of the Council:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...

It may be worth reminding Camden Council about this.

Swingler, Peter, Camden Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Martin

Please refer to the attached decision issued by the Internal Review Panel
today

Yours sincerely

Peter Swingler
On behalf of the Internal Review Panel
FOI Act
LB of Camden
10/6/09

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privileged and/or copyright protected. This e-mail is intended for the
addressee only. If you receive this in error, please contact the sender
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James Martin left an annotation ()

This is what they said:

Dear Mr Martin

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST - NOISE COMPLAINT STATISTICS - APPLICATION FOR INTERNAL REVIEW

I refer to the acknowledgement e-mail I sent to you dated 15 May 2009.

We have considered your appeal against the decision in relation to your request for access to information pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We have also considered information from the Freedom of Information Records Office in Camden regarding the Council's initial response to your request.

Your appeal disputes the application of an exemption under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, namely the costs of complying with your request exceed the appropriate limit.

Our decision is that your appeal is unsuccessful.

The Panel has reviewed the entirety of the information that you have requested. Although some of the information you request would not individually involve a cost element (as detailed within Mr Warby's letter dated 27 April 2009), the Panel agrees with him that extracting information from documents and files containing other information requested (including editing or redacting information) would involve a considerable amount of officer time. The Panel accepts the calculation of the equivalent of 30 hours to undertake that exercise. The cost arising would be £750.

The Panel accordingly agrees that your request is subject to Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act and that the Council is not obliged to comply with your request as the estimated cost of complying with it would exceed the appropriate limit. The limit is that contained within the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, namely £450 based on a charge of £25 per hour.

The Panel also supports the decision not to supply you with the policy document. Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, if one task will take over 18 hours to complete, to respond to any other question would add to the time limit that is already over the 18 hours.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this reply constitutes a Refusal Notice.

You may wish to narrow and resubmit your request so that it may fall within the “appropriate limit”, in which event the Panel advises that you should redirect any new request to Mr Warby.

T. Morgan left an annotation ()

I wonder how many FoI request review cases the councils 'independent' panel allows through? My guessing is not many.

Dan001 left an annotation ()

They should be sending such yearly statistics to the CIEH (although this is not a legal requirement).

Example given here:

http://www.cieh.org/uploadedFiles/Core/P...

Mr Akhtar left an annotation ()

Noise falls under the remit of environmental information and the charges are wholly different.

The costs are excessive under the EIR as there are many things that cannot be included.

The council is wrong in that it has treated the request under the wrong regime.