Osborne House Conservation Plan

Dear Mr Taylor

Re: Freedom of Information Request - Osborne House Conservation Plan

I am in receipt of your email, dated 30^th June 2009, for response. In
your email you have requested to be provided with various information
regarding the Osborne House Conservation Plan 1999 - 2005.

As Records Management Assistant for English Heritage I am responsible for
processing the request under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act
2000. We will be writing to you within the statutory 20 working day
timeframe with a response to your request. You will be informed if this
is not possible.

If you are unhappy with the level of service you have received in relation
to your request you may ask for an internal review. You should contact:
Mr Mike Harlow, Legal Director, English Heritage, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138
- 142 Holborn, LONDON, EC1N 2ST.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
CHESHIRE, SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely

Jenny Simmonds

Jennifer Simmonds

Records Management Assistant

English Heritage

National Monuments Record Centre

Kemble Drive

Swindon

SN2 2GZ

Tel: 01793 414567

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Dear Mr Taylor,

I have responsibility for responding to FOI requests and so both your emails to Jenny Simmonds have been passed to me for reply.

I am sorry that it has taken longer than I had anticipated for you to receive a response to your request. While I am conscious that it is not your direct concern I would like to make you aware that English Heritage is currently experiencing an unusually high volume of FOI requests and we are doing all we can to respond to them in both an appropriate and timely manner.

Please be reassured that I am currently in the process of dealing with your request and appreciate your offer of dividing the timeframe into two. It will be a great help. I am however, out of the office for all of next week but I will ask a colleague to look at your request in my absence. I hope to that we are a position to provide you with at least a partial response during the week commencing the 10 August.

I would also like to confirm that a postal address would be most useful. It is indeed unlikely that it will possible for us to email a response to you.

I thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Jessica Trevitt | Access to Information Manager
English Heritage | Mezzanine Floor |
Isambard House | Swindon | SN2 2GZ
Tel: 01793 41 4539

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Dear Taylor,

I am sorry for the delay in replying to you and also that it did not prove possible for me to respond to you as soon as I had hoped. I will look into to your request this week.

Many thanks for your understanding in this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Jessica Trevitt | Access to Information Manager
English Heritage | Mezzanine Floor |
Isambard House | Swindon | SN2 2GZ
Tel: 01793 41 4539

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Dear B Taylor,

Thank you for your email of 17 August requesting an internal review in
relation to the handling of your Freedom of Information request. I am
responsible for carrying out internal reviews where matters of procedure
are concerned and am therefore replying in this capacity.

To summarise: you initially requested the information about Osbourne House
on 30 June 2009. Your request was acknowledged on 1 July. You wrote to us
again on 30 July pointing out that the request was now overdue and
offering to break the timeframe into two. Jessica Trevitt responded to
your message, accepting your offer and stating that she hoped to get back
to you with at least a partial response in the w/b 10 August. You wrote to
us again on 13 August pointing out that a response had not been received
and expressing concern over a lack of communication in this regard.
Jessica responded to you again on 17 August.

Having reviewed the chain of correspondence and the timescales involved, I
have to agree with you that, on this occasion, we have not met the 20
working day deadline set out in the Freedom of information Act. The simple
reason for this has been the sheer number of FOI requests that we have
received over the last 2-3 months. Despite the input of additional
resource, it has not been possible to process all of them to time and I am
sure you will appreciate that we wish to continue to give high quality
responses to all requests received.

I realise that the delay will be very frustrating for you but can assure
you that your request is a top priority and that we hope to be able to
respond to you by the end of next week. I can also assure you that we are
keeping the FOI situation as a whole under review at this time and are
doing everything we can to catch up with outstanding requests. I do hope
that you will be able to bear with us for a few more days.

I also understand your point that, when you request became overdue, you
may have expected an email from us setting out the likely response time.
This has not usually been necessary in the past as we have not normally
had a problem responding to requests on time. However, I do take your
point in relation to this matter and will ensure that our procedures are
reviewed accordingly.

If you are not content with the outcome of this internal review you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a review.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

The Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely

Sophie Houlton

Corporate Records Manager

English Heritage

Sophie Houlton

Corporate Records Manager

English Heritage

Tel: 01793 414538

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Dear B Taylor,

Thank you very much for your patience in this matter. I will be monitoring progress.

Yours sincerely

Sophie Houlton

Sophie Houlton
Corporate Records Manager
English Heritage
Tel: 01793 414538

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