Communications with various individuals (3)

The request was refused by Imperial College London.

Dear Imperial College London,

Under the Freedom of Information Act I would like to request the following information:

Please provide all correspondence (letters, emails, etc.) between professor Alan Boobis (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/a.boobis) and the following individuals:

-Samuel Cohen
-Vicki Dellarco
-John Doe
-Penelope Fenner-Crisp
-Rita Schoeny
-Jennifer Seed
-Douglas Wolf

This request entails all correspondence within the time period 01/01/2015 and 01/06/2017.

Please let me know if you need any further information which could facilitate your research.

Kind regards,
Vincent Harmsen

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Mr Harmsen

This is to acknowledge receipt of your request below, made under the Freedom of Information Act. The College aims to respond to your request within twenty working days of receipt of your request.

We will contact you again in due course.

Kind regards,

Catherine Mitchell

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IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Mr Harmsen

Thank you for your recent Freedom of Information request.

Please find below the College’s response to your questions.

You have submitted 9 FOI requests between 9th May and 14th May asking for correspondence, including letters and emails and other documents, held by the College.

In total you have asked for copies of correspondence between Professor Alan Boobis and 27 other organisations and 49 separate individuals over time periods of between 6 and 18 months.

We have identified a large amount of information, running to many thousands of emails, letters and documents, that may be relevant to your request. In order to determine whether the information is relevant it would be necessary manually to review each separate piece of correspondence. Once relevant information had been identified, we would then have to consider whether any information should be withheld because it is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (such as personal information), and to redact the correspondence to remove the exempt information.

We have assessed that the task of examining this large amount of correspondence to consider whether it is relevant, and if so, if it contains exempt information, and then making redactions where necessary, would take a significant amount of time. This is because we are aware from previous requests for Professor Boobis’ correspondence, that it will contains potentially exempt information under various sections of the FOIA, including section 40(2), section 22 and section 41. We also know from previous experience that it will not be easy to isolate the exempt information because it is scattered throughout the emails and other correspondence and it would therefore be necessary manually to check each individual piece of correspondence and redact as necessary.

This task would create a very considerable burden for the staff dealing with the request, and is likely to take a significant amount of time. Furthermore, because the emails will contain data about third parties, much of which may be confidential, or commercially sensitive, we would have to consult with 27 organisations and 49 individuals about the correspondence involving them. This would create a further burden on the staff dealing with the request.

In view of that, the College believes that the information that you have requested is exempt from disclosure under s14 of the Freedom of Information Act because complying with the request would impose a grossly oppressive burden on the College.

As a result of previous requests, there is already a considerable amount of correspondence between Professor Boobis and many of these organisations that it already in the public domain, including some of the material you have requested. The College believes that any public interest in Professor Boobis’ relations with these organisations can be satisfied by the information already in the public domain, and the release of any additional material as a result of your requests is unlikely to add significantly to the public understanding of Professor Boobis’ work, or his relationship with these organisations. In view of this, the College considers that the purpose and value of your requests do not provide sufficient grounds to justify the distress, disruption or irritation that would be incurred by complying with your requests. Consequently, it is the College’s view that the public interest in maintaining the exemptions outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

I am obliged, under the Freedom of Information Act, to inform you of our complaints procedures in case you are unhappy about the way in which your request has been dealt with. If you wish to complain about this response, you should contact the College Secretary at the address below.

The College Secretary
Imperial College London
Exhibition Road
London
SW7 2AZ
E-mail: [email address]

If you are unhappy about the way in which the College Secretary handles your complaint then you may have recourse to the official regulator for the Freedom of Information Act who is:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
http://www.ico.gov.uk

Kind regards,

Catherine Mitchell

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