Penalty Charge Notice Data

Dear Mr Oakley

Re: - Request for Information - PCN information

Reference Number: ENV/7Y4KKZ

Thank you for your request for information, which was received by
Manchester City Council on 23 November 2009.

It may take up to 20 working days (approximately 4 weeks) for the Council
to consider your request and to provide a formal response.If this
timescale needs to be extended to consider an exemption you will be
notified and kept informed.

If you have also requested personal information about yourself we will
answer your request as quickly as we can and within a period of 40
calendar days in accordance with the provisions of section 7 of the Data
Protection Act 1998. You will receive a separate letter in response to
this part of your request.

Please be advised that there may be a charge for your request. You will be
advised of this in due course.

If you have any queries, please contact me on the number below.

Regards

Mike Ashman
Departmental Complaints Coordinator
& Liaison Officer
Street Management & Parking
Neighbourhood Services
Manchester City Council
Tel 0161 234 4122
Town Hall Internal 800 4122
Web: http:www.manchester.gov.uk.
Email: [email address]

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Dear Mr Oakley

Re: - Request for Information ***Reference Number: ENV/7Y4KKZ

Thank you for your request for information received by Manchester City
Council on the 23 November 2009, which has been considered under the
provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoIA).

I apologise for the delay in responding to your request.

You asked Manchester City Council:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I would like to request raw data
for penalty charge notices issued by Manchester City Council for the last
five years. I would like this data set to include:

Date & time of issue
Location - street name (and if possible, postcode)
Contravention code
Status of informal appeal (No informal appeal/informal appeal
accepted/informal appeal rejected)
Status of formal appeal (No formal appeal/formal appeal accepted/formal
appeal rejected)
Status of tribunal appeal (No tribunal appeal/tribunal appeal
accepted/tribunal appeal dismissed/tribunal appeal dismissed but council
not to take action)
Current status of ticket
Amount paid
Date of payment
Officer number

You have asked that this data is provided in any of the following formats
Microsoft Office Excel format, Open-Office Calc format or Tab separated
value format.

In respect of your request that this information be disclosed in the above
formats, the Information Commissioner has issued a Decision Notice in
respect of Newry and Mourne Health and Social Services (case number
FS50093734) stating that the Commissioner "is of the view that Section 11
of the Act relates to the means by which communication of the information
to the applicant is to be made" [i.e. by electronic means or by hard copy]
"as opposed to the actual format in which the information is presented" ,
we have therefore provided the information in PDF format.

Also in relation to question 10 requesting the Officer ID number, the
Council considers that the exemption under Section 40(2) of FoIA applies
because you have made a request for information which comprises or
contains personal information about a third party.
Section 1 (1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) defines "personal
data" as
"data which relate to a living individual who can be identified -
(a) from those data, or
(b) from those data and other information which is in the
possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of , the data
controller."

For the purposes of Section 1(1) DPA, the Council, as "data controller"
holds the officer PCN together with other information (e.g. name and home
address) which allows the individual officers to be identified. The
Council therefore believes that the officer PCN is "personal data" for the
purposes of the DPA and Section 1(1) of the DPA is therefore engaged. In
reaching this decision the Council has relied on the recent Information
Tribunal decision of Ursula Riniker and Information Commissioner
[EA/2007/0132]. In this case the Information Tribunal held that, having
regard to the definition of Section 1(1) DPA, "...it is the information in
the possession of the "data controller"...which is relevant in determining
whether the individual concerned can be identified and not the information
that would be in the possession of the putative member of the public to
whom the redacted document is disclosed".

Section 40(2) of the FoIA provides an exemption from disclosing
information about identifiable individuals where it would breach the DPA.
As you may be aware, the Information Commissioner has issued guidance
entitled Applying the exemption for third party personal data: the
Tribunal's approach in House of Commons v IC & Leapman, Brooke and Thomas
which advises that the main issue for the Council to consider in deciding
whether or not the exemption under Section 40(2) of FoIA applies is
whether the disclosure would be fair to the individual concerned. The
Council has taken account of the Information Commissioner's advice and
considers that the disclosure of the requested third party personal
information should not be disclosed because disclosure would contravene
the first data protection principle under the DPA. This states that:

1. Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in
particular, shall not be processed unless -
(a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and
(b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the
conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.

With regard to the first data protection principle, the Council is of the
view that the release of third party personal data to the world at large
by publication under FoIA would be unfair, in part because the individual
officers concerned would not reasonably have expected disclosure of their
personal data to the world at large by publication under FoIA.
In addition, with regard to the first data protection principle, the only
condition in Schedule 2 of the DPA that the Council considers may be
relevant in the present instance is Condition 6. This requires that: The
processing is necessary for the legitimate interests pursued by the data
controller or by the third party or parties to whom the data are
disclosed, except where the processing is unwarranted in any particular
case by reason of prejudice to the rights and freedoms or legitimate
interests of the data subject.

In the present case, the Council is of the view that the release of third
party personal data to the world at large by publication under FoIA would
cause unwarranted harm to the interests of the individual officers
concerned. The Council is of the view that the release of this third
party personal data alongside the data of PCN issue would pose a security
risk to the individual officers who may be at risk of harassment by
members of the public.

For the reasons set out above, the Council believes that the requested
information in respect of individual officer numbers is exempt under
Section 40(3) (a) (i) of FoIA.

With regard to the information that the Council has supplied to you,
please note that this information is ***raw data*** and it cannot be
assumed that each entry relates to a single Penalty Charge Notice (PCN).
In some cases, one PCN may have multiple entries contained in the raw
data. For example, should someone pay and then successfully appeal
against their PCN, resulting in a refund, two entries would appear in the
raw data. As such the total number of entries in the raw data is not
representative of the number of PCN***s issued during that period.

This information is split into 2 separate spreadsheets due to the amount
of information and detail requested. Spreadsheet number 1 contains all
entries of all PCN's issued and their final status, Spreadsheet 2 shows
all challenged PCN's with their respective decision.

Please find attached information as requested, spreadsheet number 1
contains the following information:

Date & time of issue
Location - street name
Contravention code
Current status of ticket
Amount paid
Date of payment

On Spreadsheet number 2, entries are abbreviated as follows:

Entries with Status LOG and with Event HOLD =
Status of informal appeal (No informal appeal/informal appeal
accepted/informal appeal rejected)

Entries with Status NTOP and Event HOLD =
Status of formal appeal (No formal appeal/formal appeal accepted/formal
appeal rejected)
Entries with Status APP and Event APP =
Status of tribunal appeal (No tribunal appeal/tribunal appeal
accepted/tribunal appeal dismissed/tribunal appeal dismissed but council
not to take action)

Please note if you are not satisfied with this response you may ask for an
internal review. If you wish to complain you should contact me in the
first instance.

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:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

Regards

Graham Marsh
Parking Manager

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Dear Mr Oakley

Re: Request for Information - Internal Review - Reference No:
ENV/7Y4KKZ

Thank you for your email dated 8th January 2010 regarding your request for
information.

Your email will be treated as a request for an internal review and will be
dealt with in accordance with the Council’s Access to Information
Complaint Procedure. The procedure is available on the Council’s web
site at :
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/script...

Please note your request will be handled as speedily as possible.

Yours sincerely

Graham Marsh
Parking Manager

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Dear Mr Oakley

I must apologise for the delay in replying to your request for an internal
review regarding Freedom of Information request ENV/7Y4KKZ. After speaking
with our Legal Department we aim to reply to your request by no later than
the 12 February 2010. I again apologise for any inconvenience this may
cause you.
Regards

Mike Ashman
Liaison Officer and Departmental Complaints Coordinator.
Street Management & Parking Services,
Manchester City Council.
Tel 0161 234 4122
www.manchester.gov.uk

Gareth Oakley To Michael Ashman
<[FOI #23499 email]> <[email address]>
cc
04/02/2010 16:06 Subject Re: Freedom of Information
request - Penalty Charge
Notice Data

Dear Michael Ashman,

Tomorrow will mark 20 working days since you acknowledged my
request for an internal review, yet contrary to your own guidelines
you have not furnished me with a target date for determining my
complaint. The ICO "considers that a reasonable time for completing
an internal review is 20 working days from the date of the request
for review".

Therefore, can you please inform me:

- Why Manchester City Council has not informed me the review
requires more than the guideline 20 days
- A target date by which Manchester City Council intends to
determine the outcome of my requested internal review

Yours sincerely,

Gareth Oakley

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Dear Mr Oakley

I must apologise for this continued delay, we aim to reply to your request
by the 17 February.
Regards

Mike Ashman
Liaison Officer and Departmental Complaints Coordinator.
Street Management & Parking Services,
Manchester City Council.
Tel 0161 234 4122
www.manchester.gov.uk

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REF: Mr Gareth Oakley,

By e-mail only: <[FOI #23499 email]>

Dear Mr Oakley,

Re: Internal Review – Parking Tickets – Reference ENV/7Y4KKZ
I am writing in response to refer to your e-mail 8 January 2010, seeking
an internal review of the Council’s decision not to supply you with
information as to the officer numbers of individual parking civil
enforcement officers who issued penalty charge notices on behalf of
Manchester City Council over the last five years.

In Graham Marsh’s response to you of the 23 November 2009 he explained
that since the Council held the officer number together with additional
information in respect of the individuals concerned, the Council believed
that the officer number was “personal data” in the hands of the
Council as defined by section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA)
and therefore exempt from disclosure under section 40(3)(a)(i) of FoIA. In
reaching this conclusion the Council considered that the only condition in
Schedule 2 of the DPA that might apply to this request was Condition 6.
However, the Council was of the view that the release of third party
personal data would be “unwarranted…by reason of prejudice to the
rights and freedoms or legitimate interests of the data subject”.

In your request for an internal review you asked the Council to consider
your assertion:

That the requested information is not “personally identifiable” and

Since other Councils have provided this information refusing it on the
grounds of safety is unacceptable.

In looking in detail at these two issues I have also looked at whether the
Council was correct to claim in its Original Response that the information
requested is exempt under Section 40(3)(a)(i) of FoIA from disclosure
under FoIA and whether the Council provided an adequate explanation as to
why we believed that the above exemption applied.

Findings
In relation to point 2 the fact that other councils may have released
information in response to a FoIA request does not mean that Manchester
City Council is necessarily wrong if it refuses to disclose the requested
information on the basis of one of the FoIA exemptions. Indeed every FoIA
request that Manchester City Council receives has to be considered on a
case-by-case basis.
As part of this Internal Review, the Council’s Parking Service has
clarified exactly what information is held on its IT system, Civica, in
relation to parking civil enforcement officers. As the Council does not
employ any parking officers itself, the information it holds is supplied
by NSL Services Limited to the Council in accordance with their
contractual obligations. I can confirm this information includes the
parking civil enforcement officer’s identification number and the name
of the officer relating to that number. The Council does not hold any
information other than this and I therefore apologise for the fact that in
our original response of the 8 January 2010 we suggested we might hold
further information such as the home addresses of the parking officers.

The fact that the Council holds both the parking civil enforcement
officer’s identification number and name means that Council considers
this to be “personal data” held by the Council for the purposes of the
DPA 1998. This means that the Council, as the “data controller” must
ensure that this “personal data” is handled in accordance with the
requirements of the DPA 1998. In our original response, we cited the
recent Information Tribunal decision of Ursula Riniker and Information
Commissioner [EA/2007/0132] which considered the definition of “personal
data” in Section 1(1) of the DPA and held that:

“…it is the information in the possession of the “data controller”
…which is relevant in determining whether the individual concerned can
be identified and not the information that would be in the possession of
the putative member of the public to whom the redacted document is
disclosed”.

As your request for the Council to disclose the officer identification
numbers is a request for the Council to process “personal data” of
someone other than yourself (third party personal data), it will be exempt
under section 40(2) of FoIA if this processing will breach one of the data
protection principles set out in the DPA. For the purposes of disclosure
under FoIA the Information Commissioner’s Guidance note entitled The
exemption for personal information advises that “it is only the first
principle – that data should be processed fairly and lawfully – that
is likely to be relevant”.

The first data protection principle states that:
Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular,
shall not be processed unless –
at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and
in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in
Schedule 3 is also met.

This Guidance advises that in relation to a disclosure under FoIA only
condition 1 (consent) or condition 6 (legitimate interests) of the
conditions in Schedule 2 of the DPA are likely to be relevant. In the
present instance, the third party concerned (the parking civil enforcement
officers) have not given consent to the Council to process the “personal
data” that the Council holds about them in order to disclose their
officer identification numbers to the world at large under FoIA. This
means that it is necessary for the Council to consider whether the
requested information should be disclosed under the provisions of
condition 6 of Schedule 2 of the DPA.

Condition 6 requires that:
The processing is necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests
pursued by the data controller or by the third party or parties to whom
the data are disclosed, except where the processing is unwarranted in any
particular case by reason of prejudice to the rights and freedoms or
legitimate interests of the data subject.

The Information Commissioner’s Guidance advises that as disclosure under
FoIA is considered disclosure to the public at large and not to the
individual applicant, the Council needs to balance the legitimate public
interest in disclosure against the interests of the individual whose
personal data it is. In light of the decision of the High Court in the
case of Corporate Officer of the House of Commons v Information
Commissioner and Brooke, Leapman and Ungoed-Thomas [2008] EWHC 1084
(Admin) the Information Commissioner’s Guidance recommends that the
Council approaches condition 6 of Schedule 2 of the DPA by way of the
following “three-part test”:

there must be a legitimate public interest in disclosure;
the disclosure must be necessary to meet that public interest; and
the disclosure must not cause unwarranted harm to the interests of the
individual.

In relation to 1 it is your contention that there is a “legitimate
public interest in disclosure” since it will “allow the public to
judge the performance of public officials”. Since the Council does not
employ any parking civil enforcement officers itself, the officers
concerned are not strictly speaking “public officials” in the normal
understanding of this term. However, it remains arguable that there is a
“legitimate public interest” in disclosure of information about
parking enforcement, irrespective of whether they are employed by a
private company or by the Council. While there is a “legitimate public
interest” in overall statistics in relation to parking enforcement, it
is less clear that there is a “legitimate public interest” in relation
to the performance of individual parking officers as opposed to mere
public curiosity in disclosing that parking officer A issued X number of
penalty charge notices and parking officer B issued Y number of penalty
charge notices. Especially since the Council has already supplied you with
all the requested information in respect of the location, date and time of
issue of Penalty Charge Notices for the last five years.

The Council also considers that the processing of the requested third
party personal data would be unwarranted in this particular case by reason
of prejudice to the rights and freedoms or legitimate interests of the
individuals concerned, and that the following factors are relevant:

1. The parking officers whose personal data is to be processed in
order to disclose the requested information are not employees of the
Council, but of a third party contractor, NSL Limited. As such, the
parking civil enforcement officers would not expect their personal data to
be processed by the Council in order for the Council to publish their
officer identification numbers to the world at large under FoIA;

2. The Council has been advised by NSL Limited, their employer that
it believes that the disclosure of the requested information would cause
unwarranted harm to the interests of its individual employees. In
particular, NSL Limited has advised that it considers that the disclosure
by publication to the world at large under FoIA will lead to a real risk
that individual parking civil enforcement officers will be targeted and
harassed by members of the public.

In conclusion it does not appear that any “legitimate public interest”
in the disclosure of the parking officer’s identification numbers is so
strong that it would outweigh the unwarranted harm to the interests of the
individual” that NSL Limited believe would be suffered by their
employees were the Council to disclose this requested third party personal
information. Moreover it does not appear that in this instance condition 6
of Schedule 2 of the DPA is satisfied. As a result, the Council considers
that if it were to process the third party data as requested then such
processing would breach the first data protection principle of the DPA and
as such the requested information is exempt from disclosure under section
40(3)(a)(i) of the FoIA.

In view of these arguments I am satisfied that the exemption under section
40(5)(b)(i) of FoIA applies in respect of the requested information.

Please note that if you remain dissatisfied you have the right to appeal
to the Information Commissioner (ICO). Details of this procedure can be
found on the ICO website: [1]http://www.ico.gov.uk

Alternatively the ICO can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Please remember to quote the above reference number in any future
correspondence.

Yours sincerely

Martin Lee
Head of Street Management
Neighbourhood Services

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References

Visible links
1. http://www.ico.gov.uk/