Phorm's Membership of UKCCIS

Dear Mr/Ms Dowling,

Thank you for your recent email. A reply will be sent to you as soon as
possible (where a response is required). For information, the
departmental standard for correspondence received is that responses
should be sent within 15 working days or 20 working days if you are
requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0043352

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0870 0002288
www.dcsf.gov.uk

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Dear Mr/Ms Dowling,
Thank you for your email dated 12 June 2009 about Phorn's membership of
the UK Council for Child Internet Safety .

I would like to apologise for the delay in responding to your original
request for information in accordance with the Freedom Of Information Act.
This information was requested by another correspondent and initially
refused. The correspodent requested an internal review of this decision
and this is currently being carried out and will conclude in the next few
days.

As soon as the decision of the review panel is known, we will respond in
full to your earlier e-mail. At the moment, I can confirm that an
application for membership of the council was completed by Phorm and
accepted by the secretariat. The answers to the other questions in your
e-mail will depend on the result of the review.
Yours sincerely,

James Ashbridge
Child Safety Unit
[email address]
[1]www.dcsf.gov.uk

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0052733.

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

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Dear Ms Dowling,

Thank you for your recent email. A reply will be sent to you as soon as
possible (where a response is required). For information, the
departmental standard for correspondence received is that responses
should be sent within 15 working days or 20 working days if you are
requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0054029

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0870 0002288
www.dcsf.gov.uk

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Dear Mr/Ms Dowling,
Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 13 May
2009. You requested:

. Confirmation that Phorm submitted an application form to UKCCIS
for membership

. The grounds and justifications for membership made in Phorm's
application for membership of UKCCIS

. The exact action taken by UKCCIS to verify Phorm's claims and
their subsequent response to that application

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
("the Act"). The Department has decided to disclose some but not all of
the information that has been requested.

The Department can confirm that Phorm submitted an application for
membership of UKCISS. The application contained the views of the applicant
organisation and the decision to accept or reject applications was made on
the information provided unless the Department, in its role of providing a
secretariat to the Council, felt that further clarification was needed.
This was not necessary in this instance.

In response to your request for the grounds and justification of
membership, please see the attached copy of Phorm's application to join
the Council and the secretariat's response to the application. Some of the
information contained in that application is being withheld because it
falls under the following sections of the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

Section 40 provides for personal information about third parties to be
exempt from disclosure where disclosure under the Act would contravene the
data protection principles in the Data Protection Act 1998.

Section 43(2) provides for information to be exempt from disclosure where
disclosure under the Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the
commercial interests of any person. After careful consideration, the
Department felt that section 43(2) of the Act applies to some of the
information for the reason that disclosure would weaken Phorm's position
in a competitive environment by revealing market-sensitive information or
information of potential usefulness to its competitors.

This exemption is subject to consideration of the public interest, to
determine whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption
outweighs the public interest in the release of the information. The
Department has considered whether the public interest lies in disclosing
or withholding the information in part or in its entirety.

The Department recognises that the following factors weigh in favour of
disclosing the redacted information:

. There should be transparency in the accountability of public
funds and decisions

. That the public are reassured that members of the council are
appropriate and that each member has a valued contribution to make to the
council's work

. The importance of proper scrutiny of government actions

. The way in which the Government engages with outside
organisations, in particular where advisory committees are established,
are conducted in an open and honest way

However the Department felt the above factors were outweighed in this case
by the following issues:

. Disclosure would make it less likely that companies or
individuals would provide the department with commercially sensitive
information in the future and consequently undermine the ability of the
department to achieve its objectives

. Companies and individuals would be less likely to become involved
in public affairs if it is felt that discussions which included
commercially sensitive information would be subsequently disclosed by the
Government

. Disclosure could adversely affect the amount of trust between
government and commercial organisations

The Department concluded that the information considered to be
commercially sensitive should be redacted in accordance with the Act, and
it has been redacted in the attached document which has been annotated to
show which section of the Act applies in each instance.

The information supplied to you is protected by the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988. Any documents produced by government officials will be
covered by Crown Copyright. You are free to use the information for your
own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for
the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial
publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder and is
regulated by the Reuse of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005. You
can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright at:

Office of Public Sector Information
Information Policy Team
Kew
Richmond
Surrey
TW9 4DU

Email: [1][email address]

Any information which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be
protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the
information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission
before reproducing such information.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you should
make a complaint to the Department by writing to me within two calendar
months of the date of this letter. Your complaint will be considered by
an independent review panel, who were not involved in the original
consideration of your request.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint to the
Department, you may then contact the Information Commissioner's Office.

Yours sincerely,

James Ashbridge
Child Safety Unit
[email address]
[2]www.dcsf.gov.uk

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0043352.

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

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