UASC Reform Programme - Proposals (Home Office 13/03/09)

Dear Sir or Madam,

With regards the letter sent to Local Authority Chief Executives
and Directors of Children's Services - 28 August 2008 - UASC Reform
Programme - Becoming a Specialist Authority, [1] can you please
email me an electronic copy of the following information:

1. A copy of the Information Pack for Proposals and any associated
guidance

2. A summary list of which local authorities, throughout the UK,
have submitted proposals of how services will be provided, costs,
capacity an implementation process. Including details of how many
pages were submitted, date of submission and what format they have
been submitted in.

3. Copies of any proposals submitted

Please provide the requested information, via email in electronic
format, to my @whatdotheyknow.com address, in the original MS Word
or plain text format if available, or alternatively in PDF format,
only if MS Word or plain text formats are not available. If you
only have paper (hard copy) copies please provide a Digital Photo
Copier Scanned version in PDF format. This will help ensure the
information is accessible for use with a Screen Reader or
Magnifier. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader>

Yours faithfully,

Cassidy, J

[1] Copy of letter sent to Local Authority Chief Executives - 28
August 2008 - UASC Reform Programme - Becoming a Specialist
Authority
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pi...

Dear Sir or Madam,

My request covers the likes of information covered in the recent
AGMA Executive Report of 27th February 2009 - Subject:
Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children Reform Programme

"UKBA have a current timeline of wanting proposals to be submitted
by March 2009."
<http://www.agma.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/s...>
(Warning: MS Word file)

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J

Dear Sir or Madam,

With regards my request in general and part 2 specifically, any
reference to individual local authorities should also be taken to
mean any consortia of local authorities.

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J

Dear Sir or Madam,

This request is currently overdue a response from Home Office. By
law, the response had to be prompt but no later than 15 April 2009,
under the Freedom of Information Act you should have replied by
now, and therefore you are breaking the law.

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J

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 Home Office's
handling of my FOI request 'UASC Reform Programme - Proposals (Home
Office 13/03/09)'.

This request is currently overdue a response from Home Office. By
law, the response had to be prompt but no later than 15 April 2009,
under the Freedom of Information Act you should have replied by
now, and therefore you are breaking the law.

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

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am assuming the letter you sent to the contact address of this
website http://www.whatdotheyknow.com was meant for me, copy below.
I have no problem in being sent advice and guidance under Section
16 of the Freedom of Information. I am unsure how you can define
this and possibly other requests as vexatious, as each request is
unique and often some of the responses I obtained seemed to be
contrary to evidence on your own newsletters and published
quotations.

You mention being a small unit, I appreciate this difficulty, but
as the reforms will have a potential impact on thousands of
children, I do consider my requests to be in the Public interest.

The unit you mention is a part of the Home Office, which has one of
the largest budgets in the UK.

The specific unit also covers grant allocations to local
authorities that run into the 100's of millions and therefore there
is a strong Public interest in knowing that it is used properly and
in the best interest of the children involved.

My impression of how my requests have been historically handled is
that there is in fact a structural and concerted effort to
frustrate the disclosure of information on the basis that it may be
an embarrassment to yourselves.

Your letter:

Directorate of Central Operations
& Performance
UASC Reform & Management
5th Floor, St Anne House.
Wellesley Road
CROYDON

Sent via email to: TEAM@ whatdotheyknow.com

27 May 2009

Dear J Cassidy,

Freedom of Information Request - 11774 - Unaccompanied Asylum
Seeking Children (UASC)

I am writing in relation to your FOI request dated 13 March 2009
about Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children. This request was
received in this office on 5th May 2009. I have assessed your
request and have decided to decline it on the basis that it is
vexatious. Section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act provides
that the Home Office is not obliged to comply with such requests.

It has been decided that this request is vexatious because of the
cumulative burden of answering the large number of requests about
USAC reform that you have submitted within a relatively short
period of time. These have impacted heavily upon the small unit
which deals with this area of work to the extent that they are
disrupting its work to an unreasonable extent. I am also writing to
inform you that all your requests received in this office after 5th
May 2009 and currently in our possession are also being refused
under section 14(1), as will any subsequent requests which fit into
the same pattern as those already received. As permitted by section
17(6) of the FOI Act, should such further requests be received, we
will not be writing to inform you of this decision.

The UK Border Agency is fully committed to fulfilling its
obligations under the FOI Act; however in the circumstances we have
reluctantly decided to rely on the above provisions. I appreciate
that you will probably have been unaware of the impact that your
requests have been having, and would like to stress that this
decision does not mean that we will never answer further requests
on this subject from you. However if we are to do so you will need
to submit requests in a more considered and manageable way, which
does not impose such a burden on the unit concerned.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an
independent internal review of our handling of your request by
submitting your complaint within two months to the below address
quoting reference FOIR 11774.

Head of Information Access Policy Team
(Freedom of Information)
11th floor – short corridor
Lunar House
40 Wellesley Road
Croydon
CR9 2BY

During the independent review the department’s handling of your
information request will be reassessed by staff who were not
involved in providing you with this response. Should you remain
dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of
complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section
50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

I am sorry that I am unable to assist you further in this matter.

Yours sincerely

Jerry Harland
UASC Reform Programme

------------end-----------

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J