Rodwell NVC database

Dear Mr Sittampalam

Thank you for your email received by us on 7^th August 2009 requesting
information under the Environmental Information Regulations. We are
dealing with your enquiry and will respond by 4^th September 2009.

With kind regards

Yours sincerely

Wendy Dalton

Business Planning Officer

JNCC

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Dear Mr Sittampalam

Thank you for your email of 6^th August 2009 entitled Freedom of
Information request - Rodwell NVC database . This request has been
handled under the Environmental Information Regulations.

We would be happy to send you a copy of the database with caveats
regarding future re-use and interpretation, however we must restate our
position as laid out in the internal review
[1]http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/nv...

of 30^th July 2009 regarding the issue of publishing on the
whatdotheyknow.com website. We still believe the information falls under
the exception under regulation 12(4)(d) of the Environmental Information
Regulations. We consider it to be against the public interest to provide
misleading information or, to divert significant resources away from
planned work to complete the database.

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your
request and wish to make a complaint, please contact Sue McQueen
([2][email address]).

If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an appeal to
the Information Commissioner who is the statutory regulator. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Telephone: 08456 30 60 60

01625 54 57 45

[3]www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Wendy Dalton

Business Planning Officer

JNCC

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Dear Mr Sittampalam

Thank you for your email of 6^th September 2009 requesting an internal
review on your request under the Freedom of Information concerning the
Rodwell NVC database.

The review will be conducted within 20 workings days and we will reply by
2^nd October 2009.

With kind regards

Yours sincerely

Wendy Dalton

Business Planning Officer

JNCC

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Dear Mr Sittampalam

Further to my email of 8^th September 2009, unfortunately due to staff
absence we are unable to complete the internal review within the 20
working days stated. We hope you appreciate this is an exceptional case
and the results of the review will be sent to you as soon as possible and
well within the 40 working days as stated in the ICO guidance of 19^th
February 2009.

With kind regards

Yours sincerely

Wendy Dalton

Business Planning Officer

JNCC

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Dear Mr Sittampalam

The internal review of the handling of your request for information
concerning the Rodwell NVC database has now been completed.

The review was conducted by the Head of European and Global Advice who is
independent of JNCC's Business Unit and the Conservation Advice Team which
were directly involved in handling your request.

The conclusions of the reviewer were as follows:

o If refusing under 12.4d then we should have given the applicant a
completion time and informed the applicant of the provisions of
regulations 11 and 18 - we did not do this and should have done so IF
this was our case. However, as the applicant argues, the dataset may
essentially be complete because no work is currently planned to
complete it even though it may contain incomplete or inaccurate data.

o However, in the previous review we had concluded that 12.4.d was not
the reason to refuse to publish this dataset through
whatdotheyknow.com, rather it was to do with issues regarding
intellectual property rights and copyright issues, the provision of
inaccurate information and failing to meet the public interest test.

o In that respect, the reasons for our refusal to publish are under
12.5.c and 12.5.f.i-iii. In addition our case was also founded on the
public interest test in 12.1.b where we felt that the costs of
remedying the errors and of contacting the owners of the data to seek
their consent to publish was disproportionate to the benefit and so we
could reasonably refuse to publish the data. There might also be a
reputation risk to JNCC of being associated with publishing poor
quality datasets when a significant part of our role is to be a
provider of reliable and validated datasets of environmental
information.

o In this case, much of the argument resolves around not so much a
refusal by us to make the data available in the format requested by
the applicant (as required under 6.1) - we are willing to provide the
information in an Excel spreadsheet for example - but to provide it to
an address which we know will result in it being published on the
internet. In that respect, I believe we are trying to comply with the
presumption to disclose information (as required under 12.2) but I
think it is reasonable for us to only make it available in a way that
avoids publication because it would be unreasonable for us to be
required to breach intellectual property rights etc. In that respect
I feel we comply with regulation 6.1.a.

o In summary, I think we are acting within the letter and spirit of the
2004 EIR by offering to provide the data to the applicant privately
but to refuse to supply it to an address which will result in its
publication. I think this approach is justified under a public
interest test (12.1.b) and because publication would affect the
intellectual property rights and interests of the people who provided
the data (12.5.c & 12.5.f.i-iii).

Accordingly if you still wish to obtain the information, please send us an
alternative address and we will be delighted to send it to you.

I hope this information is helpful. However, if you are still not content
with the handling of your request you may write to the:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely

Tracey Quince

JNCC Business Manager

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Dear Mr Sittampalam

Following the decision in June 2010 by the Information
Commissioner’s Office requesting the JNCC to provide the Rodwell
NVC databases. We now attached the databases as requested via the
Whatdotheyknow.com website.

We wish to reiterate that the databases we are making available are
in the form in which we received them. Having briefly scrutinised
these, we are aware that the content of the tables is not fully
described and not all of the column fields are complete. An
analysis of the allocation of samples to NVC types revealed that:
(i) at the sub-community level at least 4112 out of 27008 samples
(15%) are incorrectly allocated; and (ii) at the community level at
least 3481 out of 31272 samples (11%) are incorrectly allocated.
The true percentage of samples that are incorrectly allocated
cannot be ascertained, but is certainly more. This clearly
undermines the validity of the NVC community/sub-community
allocations within the databases and has major implications as
regards their interpretation and use.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact
us.

With kind regards Yours sincerely Mrs Wendy Dalton Business Support
Officer JNCC Monkstone House City Road Peterborough PE1 1JY

Tel: 01733 866884 E-mail: [email address]

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) is the statutory
adviser to Government on UK and international nature conservation.
Its work contributes to maintaining and enriching biological
diversity, conserving geological features and sustaining natural
systems. JNCC delivers the UK and international responsibilities of
the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside, the
Countryside Council for Wales, Natural England and Scottish Natural
Heritage.  please consider the environment - do you really need to
print this email?