Treatment of Freedom of Information Requests - Subjects - Outcomes - Time to Respond

Dear Southwark Borough Council,

For the 100 most recent FOI requests which the council considers
closed, be that because the request was rejected, met, or declared
"not held", please provide the following information:

(1) The date the request was received by the council.

(2) The summary subject of the request - in less than 20 words

(3) The date the request was acknowledged.

(4) The date the initial final response was given

(5) The status of this response, ie met, not held, rejected

(6) Whether an Internal Review was requested, and if so the date on
which this was completed and the outcome status

(7) Whether the FOI Request to the council's knowledge was referred
to the ICO.

(8) Whether the ICO issued any guidance or instruction to the
council following this referral.

(9) The final outcome after the ICO referral.

It is understood that a case may be referred to the ICO after the
council regards it a closed, and so this list request may not be
final and definitive, but at any given time, a FOI Request must be
either open or closed as far as the council, is considered.

This FOI Request is asking about the situation when it is
processed, and a snapshot should be taken, with the date of this
recorded in the reply.

As most of this information must already be held electronically for
administrative reasons by the council, it should not be onerous to
provide it.

Please provide this electronically, preferably in an XLS
spreadsheet.

Yours faithfully,

Marlon Campbell

Dear accessinfo,

I note that the 20 working day deadline has passed without any
response being provided to my FOI Request.

This is very disappointing.

The Request was a straight forward one, and I see no reason why the
council could not provider its response within the statutory limit
of 20wd.

Please give an indication of a date by when the council expects to
provide its reply - as otherwise a reference to the ICO will become
necessary.

Yours sincerely,

Marlon Campbell

Dear Southwark Borough Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Southwark Borough
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Treatment of Freedom of
Information Requests - Subjects - Outcomes - Time to Respond'.

This is a disappointing response, and it does not comply with the
rules.

(1) You have not confirmed whether you do or do not hold the
information requested.
You are required to state whether you do or do not hold all the
information, and if you only hold some of it, which parts you do
hold.

(2) Under §16, you are under an obligation to be helpful, and to
assist me in focussing my request so it does fall within the FOI
limits.
Your response fails that test.

For example, it is wholly incredible that you cannot readily
provide an XLS spreadsheet which contains a list of 100 recent FOI
requests with the date of receipt, and complete that process within
an hour or so.

(3) I note you say you will be "within the next few months
implementing a new database that will in future enable us to
provide reports reflecting the questions asked above from next
year". The FOI Act has been in effect for 5 years, and the data
sought here is basic data which should have been readily available
for some time.

(4) Kindly provide a proper estimate of the time it will take to
produce the information, making clear if some aspects are more
difficult than others, so I may change my FOI Request in order to
obtain some useful information.

(5) Please also confirm what kind of reports the council has
published for the past 3 years in terms of its FOI activity and a
list of them, and either provide a weblink for them or supply a
copy of the most recent one.

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

Yours faithfully,

Marlon Campbell

Dear accessinfo,

I note that nearly 4 weeks have passed since you said you hoped to
reply in 20wd.

I would refer you to this webpage:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/foi-g...

In particular to this document there:

* Summary guidance on publishing freedom of information data
(PDF 0.09mb 14 pages)

Please confirm when I may expect a full reply, lest a reference to
the ICO becomes necessary.

Yours sincerely,

Marlon Campbell

Dear MARK, IAN,

Thank you for your reply, and I note that you went over the normal
18h limit, for which I am grateful.

I am conducting research into the ways that councils in London
handle FOI Requests.

I made the same request as I made to you to each of the 33 London
boroughs, and to TfL and the GLA.

I need to import the data into a spreadsheet.

Unfortunately the PDF file you have provided does not allow me to
do this.

Could you kindly supply me the data as an XLS spreadsheet - as I
did in fact originally request?

Yours sincerely,

Marlon Campbell