Register of Interests

James Brown made this Freedom of Information request to University of Salford

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, University of Salford should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

From: James Brown

30 November 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

I refer to Annex C of the "Code of Conduct for Members of Council
and Senior Officers" available to the public at

http://policies.salford.ac.uk/display.ph...

Please provide the current entries in the register of interests of
the following:

1. All members of the Council, whether ex-officio, appointed,
representative or co-opted;

2. Staff of the University holding the following offices or
appointments:
Vice-Chancellor
Pro-Vice-Chancellors
Deans of Faculty
Associate Deans
Director of Academic Enterprise
Director of Graduate Studies
Director of Quality and Standards
Heads of School
Directors of Research Institutes
Registrar and Secretary
Directors of Support Services

Please include all interests relating to the following categories:
- paid employment or self-employment
- significant consultancies
- directorships of commercial companies
- significant shareholdings
- elected officerships
- trusteeships or participation in the management of charities and
other voluntary bodies
- public appointments (paid or unpaid)
- all other declared interests

Please also include all declared interests of spouses, partners or
close family members.

Please confirm if and when any audit of the register of interests
has been carried out and how often these are up-dated. Please also
supply a full copy of all reports on a yearly basis, in particular
any and all audit/overview reports from 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Yours faithfully,

James Brown

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From: Matthew Stephenson
University of Salford

2 December 2009

Dear Sir,

Your request for information has been considered and will not be
processed.

The exemption stated under Section 21 (Information accessible to
applicant by other means) applies as the Annex to the code of practice
to which you refer clearly specifies the manner in which the information
requested may be sought.

Consequently this email acts as a refusal notice.

You may complain to the University about the handling of your request
has been dealt with. If you wish to do so please make your request in
writing stating the grounds of your complaint to me at the address
below.

Alternatively you may wish to complain to the Information Commissioner's
Office (ICO) whose address is: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF, telephone 01625 545700. The ICO will not normally
consider a complaint, however, until the internal complaints procedure
has been exhausted.

Yours faithfully
Matthew Stephenson

Matthew Stephenson
Head of Information Governance
Governance Services
University of Salford
The Crescent
Salford M5 4WT

Tel: 0161 295 6856
Fax: 0161 295 6339
Email: [email address]
Web: www.infogov.salford.ac.uk

Important notice: The copyright in this email is owned by the University
of Salford. Any distribution, copying or publication of this email (or
any part of it), including via the internet, will infringe the
University of Salford's copyright contrary to section 16 of the
Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and may result in legal action
being taken against you.

show quoted sections

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From: James Brown

2 December 2009

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 University of
Salford's handling of my FOI request 'Register of Interests'.

I am dissatisfied by your response. The disclosure of this
information has already been tested in the Information
Commissioner's Office. In fact the publication of these registers
should be part of your organisation's publication scheme and I am
curious to know why I even have to file an FOI request for them as
they ought to be automatically disclosed. Please see:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/free...

"Register of gifts and hospitality provided to senior personnel
Any register of interests kept in the university"

I am frankly bewildered by your response that "The exemption stated
under Section 21 (Information accessible to applicant by other
means) applies as the Annex to the code of practice to which you
refer clearly specifies the manner in which the information
requested may be sought."

I presume you are referring to paragraphs 2.4 and 2.5 of the annex:

"2.4 The Register of Interests of members of Council will be
available for inspection by members of the Council and by
administrative staff responsible for servicing sub-committees of
the Council. The Registrar and Secretary may, at his discretion,
make the Register available to other members of the University and
to members of the public provided he is satisfied that the enquiry
is not frivolous.

2.5 The Register of Interests of senior officers will be available
for inspection by the Vice-Chancellor, the Director of Finance and
the Chair of the University's Audit Committee. The Registrar and
Secretary may, at his discretion, make the Register available to
other members of the University and to members of the public
provided he is satisfied that the enquiry is not frivolous."

I cannot see how the annex "clearly" specifies the manner in which
the information requested may be sought. Please clarify further. If
you are relying on another paragraph of the annex, please identify
which one.

Indeed, I fail to see what relevance the Register has if it is not
open to public inspection.

Taking note of the above, particularly the fact that the disclosure
of this information has already been tested in the Information
Commissioner's Office, I expect your substantive reply promptly.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/re...

Yours faithfully,

James Brown

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R Pritchard left an annotation ( 9 December 2009)

Hilarious! You can't view the register, because it's available if you ask to see it? But if you ask to see it, the University of Salford says you can't!

Or perhaps the "other means" they refer to are "get appointed as Vice-Chancellor, Registrar, Director of Finance, Chair of the University's Audit Committee or Member of Council".

It reminds me of their ludicrous reliance on Section 21 when they were asked for course validation documents and course materials for their courses in Homeopathy and in Traditional Chinese Medicine - see http://www.dcscience.net/?p=885

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Damien Shannon left an annotation (10 December 2009)

Utterly preposterous! "The Registrar and Secretary may, at his discretion, make the Register available to other members of the University and to members of the public provided he is satisfied that the enquiry is not frivolous."

Why on earth is it at his discretion? This should be freely available and he should not be free to decide whether or not a claim is "frivolous"!

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Anthony L Hargreaves left an annotation (11 December 2009)

What on earth is going on at the University of Salford? I was amused to see that they claim to be an "Open Access University"! http://www.research.salford.ac.uk/cms/ne...

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James Brown left an annotation (20 February 2010)

Referred to the Information Commissioner on 20th February 2010.

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James Brown left an annotation (19 March 2010)

19 March 2010
 
Dear Mr Brown
 
Your information requests to the University of Salford
 
Thank you for your correspondence dated in which you complain about the response you received to three requests for information you have made to the University of Salford .
 
We note from the correspondence that the University of Salford failed to respond to your information requests within 20 working days as required by section 10 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the FOIA).
 
Although a clear breach of the FOIA did occur the University of Salford has now provided a response and apologised for the delay. At this stage the Commissioner does not therefore consider that serving a formal decision notice would serve any strong public interest. However, I have written to the University of Salford reminding it of its responsibilities and referring it to the Information Commissioner’s guidance on the matter. I attach a copy of my letter for your information.
 
As you will see even though the Commissioner does not intend to issue a formal notice in this case, your concerns have been taken seriously.  Thank you for bringing this matter to the attention of the Information Commissioner.
 
Internal Review
 
It is clear form the correspondence that you are still awaiting decisions regarding the internal reviews you requested in relation to all three of your requests on 2 December 2009 and 2 February 2010.
 
The right to complain to the Information Commissioner is given under section 50 of the Act. However, a complaint may be deemed ineligible under section 50, if for example:
 
there is an undue delay before bringing a complaint to our attention, or
you have not exhausted any complaints procedure which is provided by the public authority.
 
Therefore, before accepting complaints, the Commissioner generally expects complainants to allow public authorities the opportunity to respond to their appeal for a review of the handling of or decision regarding their request for information.
 
Although there is no statutory time set out in the Act within which public authorities must complete a review, the Commissioner has issued guidance on this matter (Good Practice Guidance 5). The Commissioner considers that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working days from the date of the request for review, and in no case should the total time taken exceed 40 working days.
 
As you will see from my letter to the University of Salford I have provided them with copies of your requests for internal review and recommend that they issue you with internal review decisions within 20 working days from the date of receipt of our letter.
 
Significant or repeated unreasonable delays in dealing with internal reviews by public authorities are monitored and where appropriate further action may be taken.
 
This case has now been closed, however if you do not receive a response within 20 working days please contact us quoting the reference number on this letter.
 
If you remain dissatisfied after having received the University of Salford ’s internal review decision and would like us to look into the matter, please contact us quoting the reference number on this letter and providing us with a copy of the internal review decision. At this stage the issue you raise regarding the University of Salford ’s publication scheme, in that you believe the information you have requested should be listed on the scheme, can also be addressed.
 

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James Brown left an annotation (19 March 2010)

19 March 2010

Dear Mr Stephenson
 
Information requests from Mr James Brown (the requester)
 
The Information Commissioner has received a complaint from Mr Brown regarding three requests for information he has made to the University of Salford.  We attach copies of the relevant correspondence for your information.  Full correspondence is also available at the following link:
 
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/james...
 
Mr Brown’s requests were made on 30 November 2009 and 5 December 2009. We note from the correspondence that the University of Salford failed to reply to Mr Brown’s three requests within 20 working days, as required by section 10 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the FOIA).
 
As you will be aware, a public authority in receipt of a request under the FOIA has a duty to deal with them promptly and, in any event, within 20 working days. Although there are some exceptions, particularly where additional time is required to consider the public interest in disclosing information; none of these exceptions appear to apply in this case.
 
The Commissioner recognises that in this particular instance you have acknowledged the breach and apologised for the delay.  He does not consider, therefore, that there is any strong public interest in issuing a decision notice. He does, however, draw your attention to his published guidance on this matter (http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...) 
 
You will appreciate that in the event of other, similar complaints, the Commissioner may consider taking enforcement action under s.52 of the Act.
 
Internal Review
 
We also note from the correspondence that Mr Brown has not received a decision regarding the internal reviews he requested on 2 December 2009 and 2 February 2010 (in relation to two requests).
 
Guidance
 
The Commissioner has issued guidance regarding the time limits on carrying out internal reviews (Good Practice Guidance 5). The Commissioner considers that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working days from the date of the request for review, and in no case should the total time taken exceed 40 working days.
 
A full copy of this guidance is available on our website (www.ico.gov.uk) under the Freedom of Information guidance section.
 
http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/free...
 
Enforcement
 
The Commissioner wants to ensure that a complainant has exhausted a public authority’s internal review procedure, but at the same time the complainant should not be unreasonably delayed in having his complaint considered under section 50.
 
Internal reviews are referred to in the section 45 Code of Practice, and significant or repeated unreasonable delays in dealing with internal reviews will be monitored by the Enforcement team. In some instances structured intervention, for example the issuing of a Practice Recommendation, may be necessary.
 
More detail about the Commissioner’s enforcement strategy is available on our website under the Freedom of Information enforcement section.
 
http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/free...
 
Actions
 
As you have not issued internal review decisions to Mr Brown in relation to the three requests for information he has made we recommend that you do so within 20 working days from the date of receipt of this letter.
 
If you need to contact us about this complaint please quote the reference number at the top of this letter.  I have provided a copy of this letter to Mr Brown.
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
Tony Dixon
FoI Case Officer
FoI Case Reception Unit
The Information Commissioner’s Office
 

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From: James Brown

28 April 2010

Dear Matthew Stephenson,

I remind you that the Commissioner's Office wrote to you on 19th
March 2010: "As you have not issued internal review decisions to Mr
Brown in relation to the three requests for information he has made
we recommend that you do so within 20 working days from the date of
receipt of this letter."

Please can you explain why you have not acted on the Information
Commissioner's recommendation about this request?

I would like to know the reason for the delay.

Could you also provide the name and position of the person who has
carried out the internal review.

Yours sincerely,

James Brown

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From: Matthew Stephenson
University of Salford

28 April 2010

I am out of the office and will return on Friday 30 April 2010.

For urgent matters or to make an FoI requests, please contact Wai Yan Loh on 0161 29 53152 or email: [University of Salford request email]

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From: James Brown

6 May 2010

Dear Matthew Stephenson,

I am trying to be patient, but you will be aware that the
Information Commissioner wrote to me on 19th March 2010 stating
that "if you do not receive a response within 20 working days
please contact us quoting the reference number on this letter."

I have now been waiting well over 20 working days, and I have still
not received a response from you. I intend to contact the
Commissioner again on Friday of this week if I do not receive a
substantive response from you before then.

Yours sincerely,

James Brown

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James Brown left an annotation (17 May 2010)

17 May 2010

Dear Mr Brown

Further to our previous correspondence regarding your complaints against the University of Salford , and my previous email of 14 May 2010 I am writing to inform you that your case has been allocated to me to investigate.

In order to reach a decision as to whether the Freedom of Information Act (the Act) has been correctly applied, I will need to carry out a thorough investigation. This may take me some time as I will need to ensure that I am aware of all the relevant facts and that I carefully consider the application of the law to those facts.

Where possible the Information Commissioner prefers complaints to be resolved by informal means. If this does not prove to be possible, he will usually issue a Decision Notice to you and the public authority once an investigation has been completed. This will inform you of his decision and the reasons for it.

Where the Commissioner decides that a request has not been handled properly he may specify what steps he believes are necessary to remedy the situation. This can include requiring a public authority to release information which has previously been withheld. A copy of the Decision Notice will be placed on our website (with your details omitted). If you disagree with the decision that has been reached you have a legal right of appeal to the Information Tribunal.

Your request

From the information which has been provided to us, I understand that you made a series of requests to the University of Salford between 30 November and 5 December 2009 for information about the university’s registers of gifts, hospitality, suppliers, members’ interests and related matters. You have provided copies of those requests.

One item, your request about the register of members’ interests, was initially refused on the basis of the exemption provided by section 21 of the Act, but an internal review was conducted by the public authority which related to your, and various other, requests and these were collectively refused as vexatious, on the basis of the provisions of section 14(1) of the Act.

The scope of the case

Your complaint indicates that you believe the information you have requested should be made available by the public authority under its publication scheme. You also complain about the public authority’s refusal of the requests as vexatious.

* The focus of my investigation will be to determine whether or not your requests were correctly refused under section 14(1) of the Act and whether the information should be published in the university’s publication scheme.

You also ask whether it is possible to refuse a request as vexatious if the information should be in the publication scheme. I can advise you that it is the Commissioner’s view that in some circumstances this can be appropriate. With regard to your complaint that no advice and assistance was offered, you may note that the code of practice issued by the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs in compliance with section 45 of the Act states, at paragraph 15:

“An authority is not expected to provide assistance to applicants whose requests are vexatious within the meaning of section 14 of the Act”

The Code of Practice can be found at the following link:

http://www.foi.gov.uk/reference/imprep/c...

As the refusal on the basis of section 21 of the Act was changed, at internal review, to a refusal on the basis of section 14 (vexatious requests), the refusal under section 21 of the Act no longer applies and will not be considered further. You should understand that one purpose of an internal review is to give a public authority an opportunity to rectify any errors or omissions in its response by itself, before a complaint to the Information Commissioner is necessary. For similar reasons, the Commissioner is not obliged to accept a complaint if it appears to him that a public authority’s own internal complaints procedure has not been exhausted. Therefore the Commissioner will consider the circumstances which exist after the outcome of any internal review.

I note the delayed responses in two of your requests and these procedural matters can be addressed during the course of this investigation.

* Please contact me as soon as possible if there are matters other than these that you believe should be addressed. This will help avoid any unnecessary delay in investigating your complaint. If I do not hear from you, my investigation will focus only upon the matters identified above.

As I have indicated, the process of reaching a decision may take some time but I will update you on the progress of the investigation as appropriate but at least every 6-8 weeks.

(Contact details for Mr Dickinson removed)

It may not be possible for me to respond to enquiries immediately due to other work commitments but I will endeavour to provide a response as promptly as possible and will ensure that a response is provided within 14 working days of the receipt of any enquiry.

Yours sincerely

Steven Dickinson
Complaints Officer

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From: Foi
University of Salford

23 September 2010

Attachment FW Freedom of Information request Register of Interests.html
6K Download

Attachment Freedom of Information request Register of gifts and hospitality.html
4K Download

Attachment Freedom of Information request Register of suppliers.html
4K Download

Attachment Freedom of Information request Legal costs incurred in connection with disciplinary proceedings.html
4K Download

Dear Mr Brown,

I am writing to inform you that your previous requests for information
(see attached) have been reconsidered and the information will be provided
to you shortly.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Stephenson

Head of Information Governance

Governance Services

University of Salford

Clifford Whitworth Building

Salford

M5 4WT

T: 0161 295 6856

F: 0161 295 6339

[1][email address]

[2]www.infogov.salford.ac.uk

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.infogov.salford.ac.uk/

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From: James Brown

7 October 2010

Dear Foi,

Thank you for your email of 23rd September 2010 telling me that my
previous requests for information have been reconsidered and that
you will provide the information "shortly".

Since then another two weeks have passed. It is now approaching ONE
YEAR since my original requests! How much longer do you need?

Please could you explain the reason for the monumental delay? And
please could you explain why you have decided to provide the
information now, after previously rejecting the request as
vexatious?

If I do not receive all of the information I requested by Friday
15th October 2010, I will have to contact the Information
Commissioner yet again.

Yours sincerely,

James Brown

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Eric Longley left an annotation (10 May 2011)

Whats happening here have the UoS provided the information or has a complaint been made to ICO. Be good to know whats happening and would be really good to know how UoS reclassified vexatious to non vexatious as author of request indicated

Eric Longley

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Damien Shannon left an annotation (11 May 2011)

Requestor was asked to demonstrate proof of identity and stopped corresponding - it is presumed the request was made under a pseudonym.

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Things to do with this request

Anyone:
University of Salford only: