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Josh Smith made this Freedom of Information request to Norfolk County Council
The request was successful.
From: Josh Smith
31 August 2008
Dear Sir or Madam,
I saw on Martin Rosenbaum's "Open Secrets" blog
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2...)
that "an official from Norfolk County Council complained about
[WhatDoTheyKnow.com] at the FOILive conference", and it's made me
curious as to what the Council's complaints were; unlike Rother
District Council, you don't seem to have voiced them publicly.
Do you have any notes or records of your official's complaints at
the conference or, failing that, any other documents, letters,
memos, etc that detail such complaints, and are releasable under
the Freedom of Information Act?
Thanks,
Yours faithfully,
Josh Smith
From: FOI
Norfolk County Council
1 September 2008
Dear Mr Smith
Thank you for your request, received by us on Monday 1 September 2008.
Please find attached our response to your request.
Should you have any queries, please get in contact.
Yours sincerely
Matthew Smith
Freedom of Information and Data Protection Assistant
Corporate FOI and DP Unit
Norfolk Record Office
Norfolk County Council
Martineau Lane
Norwich
NR1 2DQ
e-mail: [Norfolk County Council request email]
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Josh Smith left an annotation ( 8 September 2008)
Thanks for that, Francis.
Courteous, prompt and thorough are certainly the words I'd use. The speed of their response, as well as the content of it, are also very reassuring:
"Please be assured that they have not, and will not, alter our approach of replying to all FOI requests within the legal requirements as stated by the FOI Act and also within the spirit of openness that the Act promotes."
Heather Brooke left an annotation (20 October 2009)
This is an interesting correspondence and reveals the fundamental problem I see in the attitude of most public servants.
It's the idea that they believe they 'control' the information collected and paid for by the citizenry and that even under freedom of information the citizen has no right to - as the Norfolk employee says: "publish the information without our consent."
In a democracy no citizen should have to ask the consent or permission of a bureaucrat to use public information.
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Francis Irving left an annotation ( 8 September 2008)
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