Costs

The request was successful.

Dear Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Northern Ireland),

How much has the Department spent each year, of the past 5 years, broken down by year, on staff ringing directory inquiries for telephone numbers?

How much has the Department spent each year, of the past 5 years, broken down by year, on staff ringing the speaking clock?

Yours faithfully,

Ben Brown

CFOI OFMDFM,

Dear Mr Brown
 
Further to receipt of your request, please note I am corresponding on
behalf of NI Departments.
 
Please note that after initial consideration of your request, the
Departments are in agreement that the activities involved in retrieving
the information will exceed the cost threshold (£600), as the request
stands at present (12. — (1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public
authority to comply with a request for information if the authority
estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the
appropriate limit).  To help in the understanding of the activities
involved, I have provided an outline below:
 
The information in relation to mobile phones and Blackberries is not held
by Account NI (Shared Service), therefore manual retrieval would have to
be undertaken.  This would involve identifying those individuals holding a
mobile phone / Blackberry, contacting them to have them retrieve their
phone bills for the last five years.  Each phone bill would then have to
be gone through in order to extract and collate the relevant information.
 
We illustrate below the activities for one of the smaller Departments:
 

* 172 mobile phones/blackberries held.
* Quarterly phone bills each year x 5 years: 4 x 5 = 20 bills.
* Approximately 50 calls per bill x 20 bills = 1,000 lines to go through
to retrieve specific information requested.
* Approximately 15 seconds per line (to read and retrieve appropriate
information) x 1,000 = 15,000 seconds = 250 minutes = approximately
4.2 hrs.
* 4.2 hrs x 172 individuals phone bills = 716.6 hours.
* FOI fee £25.00 per hour x 716.6 hrs = £17,917.00

 
Paragraph 14 of the FOI section 45 Code of Practice states that where a
public authority is not obliged to comply with a request because it would
exceed the appropriate limit to do so, then it: “…should consider
providing an indication of what, if any, information could be provided
within the cost ceiling. The authority should also consider advising the
applicant that by reforming or re-focussing their request, information may
be able to be supplied for a lower, or no, fee.”
 
Under section 16. — (1), it shall be the duty of a public authority to
provide advice and assistance, so far as it would be reasonable to expect
the authority to do so, to persons who propose to make, or have made,
requests for information to it):
 
Reducing the number of years to one year will also exceed the appropriate
limit.  The cost would be approximately (143 hours x £25 =) £3,583. 
However, we can provide information held centrally in relation to current
locations, which have IT Assist (shared service) landline voice services. 
This information will be for the financial years 2009/10 to the current
financial year ending October 2013).  The directory inquiry service is
provided by a variety of different companies, with a variety of call
charges, and each company is reached by dialling a six digit number
beginning with 118.  All numbers starting with 118 will therefore be
included in our response.  A separate breakdown (by financial year) will
be provided for the 123 number (speaking clock). 
 
Please advise how you wish us to proceed.
 
Regards
 
Central FOI Team
 

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Dear CFOI OFMDFM,

Taking into account what you have said please provide me with what you have at the moment. Will you cascade this across to all other Departments or is that something I need to do?

Yours sincerely,

Ben Brown

CFOI OFMDFM,

Mr Brown - Thank you for your quick response. We will advise the other Departments that you are content to receive information held centrally. You will receive the response from the Department of Finance and Personnel in due course.

Regards

Central FOI Team

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Dear CFOI OFMDFM,

Thanks. This should be by 22nd November at the latest.

Yours sincerely,

Ben

Dear Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Northern Ireland),

On the 25th October I asked each Northern Ireland Government department -

How much has the Department spent each year, of the past 5 years, broken down by year, on staff ringing directory inquiries for telephone numbers?

How much has the Department spent each year, of the past 5 years, broken down by year, on staff ringing the speaking clock?

On the 8th November I received a clarification letter from CFOI OFMDFM. On the same date I indicated I was content to receive what was being offered. I was told "we will advise the other Departments that you are content to receive information held centrally. You will receive the response from the Department of Finance and Personnel in due course."

This information should have been provided by the 22nd November at the latest. Will you know provide this information?

Yours faithfully,

Ben

Dear CFOI OFMDFM,

On the 25th October I asked each Northern Ireland Government department -

How much has the Department spent each year, of the past 5 years, broken down by year, on staff ringing directory inquiries for telephone numbers?

How much has the Department spent each year, of the past 5 years, broken down by year, on staff ringing the speaking clock?

On the 8th November I received a clarification letter from CFOI OFMDFM. On the same date I indicated I was content to receive what was being offered. I was told "we will advise the other Departments that you are content to receive information held centrally. You will receive the response from the Department of Finance and Personnel in due course."

This information should have been provided by the 22nd November at the latest. Will you know provide this information?

Yours sincerely,

Ben

FOI (DHSSPSNI),

BEN

I have forwarded your e-mail to CFOI OFMDFM.

John McCann
Information Management Branch
DHSSPS

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Ben left an annotation ()

This is a general answer as supplied from DFPNI.

In relation to staff accessing directory assistance from land line telephones from the Northern Ireland Government Departments as well as the Northern Ireland Assembly -
2010/11 - £8,117.36
2011/12 - £7,237.53
2012/13 - £12,697.29
2013/14 (to 31 Oct) - £10,388.86
Total - £38,441.04

In relation to staff using the speaking clock service from land line telephones from the Northern Ireland Governments as well as the Northern Ireland Assembly -
2010/11 - £1,327.12
2011/12 - £1,354.82
2012/13 - £2,335.50
2013/14 (to 31 Oct) - £1,926.61
Total £6,944.05