Dear Mr Prabhu,

Thank you for your request for information, made under Section 1(1) of the
Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (FOISA), and received on 07 January
2019.

We would like to ask you to clarify your request so that we can identify
and locate the information which you have requested. Under Section 1(3) of
the FOISA, we do not have to supply you with the requested information
until you have provided us with more detail in this respect.

Please also provide details on the procurement category of each
transaction if you have it.

We would be extremely grateful if you could clarify what you mean by
‘procurement category’ ? Could you please provide more explanation ?

Clarifying these points will help us to be sure we are providing, where
possible, the information you are interested in.  Please note we will keep
your request on file for 20 working days whilst we await your
clarification.  It can often be helpful to discuss your request with a
member of our team who may be able to help you frame your request or
explain more about how ACC holds its information; if this is something you
feel may be helpful please do call us, and we will be happy to assist you.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Salomeh Kheyri Rad

Access to Information Officer

[1]ACC_Crest_for Salomeh Kheyri Rad | Access to Information Officer
mac email
Aberdeen City Council | Access to Information Team |
Customer Feedback |Customer

Marischal College | 3^rd Floor | Broad Street | Aberdeen
| AB10 1AQ

Dial: 01224 522166

[2]www.aberdeencity.gov.uk | Twitter: @AberdeenCC |
Facebook.com/AberdeenCC

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail (including any attachment to it) is
confidential, protected by copyright and may be privileged. The
information contained in it should be used for its intended purposes only.
If you receive this email in error, notify the sender by reply email,
delete the received email and do not make use of, disclose or copy it.
Whilst we take reasonable precautions to ensure that our emails are free
from viruses, we cannot be responsible for any viruses transmitted with
this email and recommend that you subject any incoming email to your own
virus checking procedures. Unless related to Council business, the
opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and they do not
necessarily constitute those of Aberdeen City Council. Unless we expressly
say otherwise in this email or its attachments, neither this email nor its
attachments create, form part of or vary any contractual or unilateral
obligation. Aberdeen City Council's incoming and outgoing email is subject
to regular monitoring.

References

Visible links
2. http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/

Dear Mr Prabhu,

Information enquiry reference FOI-19-0019.

Many thanks for your recent clarification of your information request,
which we received on 10 January 2019. 

The scheduled date for our response to your request for information is on
or before 07 February 2019.

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any queries in the
meantime.

Yours sincerely,

Salomeh Kheyri Rad

Access to Information Officer

[1]ACC_Crest_for Salomeh Kheyri Rad | Access to Information Officer
mac email
Aberdeen City Council | Access to Information Team |
Customer Feedback |Customer

Marischal College | 3^rd Floor | Broad Street | Aberdeen
| AB10 1AQ

Dial: 01224 522166

[2]www.aberdeencity.gov.uk | Twitter: @AberdeenCC |
Facebook.com/AberdeenCC

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail (including any attachment to it) is
confidential, protected by copyright and may be privileged. The
information contained in it should be used for its intended purposes only.
If you receive this email in error, notify the sender by reply email,
delete the received email and do not make use of, disclose or copy it.
Whilst we take reasonable precautions to ensure that our emails are free
from viruses, we cannot be responsible for any viruses transmitted with
this email and recommend that you subject any incoming email to your own
virus checking procedures. Unless related to Council business, the
opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and they do not
necessarily constitute those of Aberdeen City Council. Unless we expressly
say otherwise in this email or its attachments, neither this email nor its
attachments create, form part of or vary any contractual or unilateral
obligation. Aberdeen City Council's incoming and outgoing email is subject
to regular monitoring.

References

Visible links
2. http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/

Dear Mr Prabhu, 

Thank you for your information request of 10 January 2019.  Aberdeen City
Council (ACC) has completed the necessary search for the information
requested. Our response is now detailed below.

All transactions over £500 from 1st April 2017 to 31st December 2018 (if
December 2018 is not available, then, November 2018). Please provide the
data in a machine readable format (preferably CSV). As a minimum, please
make sure to include the date, value and recipient of each transaction.
Please also provide details on the procurement category of each
transaction if you have it.

We are looking for an itemized transaction list of Payment to Supplier
(Council expenditure) from 1st April 2017 - 31st December 2018. In
particular I am looking for itemized transactions for all suppliers from
1st April 2017 - 31st December 2018 - preferably in a CSV format

We are looking for payments to suppliers who provide a service in Health
and Social Care. This would include all suppliers falling under the
following categories

1. Payments to suppliers who provide fostering and adoption services to
the Council

2. Payments to suppliers who provide care services to the council. This
would include suppliers who provide care under each of the categories
below

a. Children's Residential/ Nursing Care Providers

b. Adult Residential/ Nursing Care Providers

c. Elderly Residential/ Nursing Care Providers

d. Domiciliary Care Home Providers

e. Supported Living Care Home Providers

f. Care at Home Providers

g. Providers who carry out Homeless Services

3. Payments to suppliers who provide Special Education Services

We have looked at the amount of transaction in one month for one of the
codes that would contain some of the categories in their list and it has
2914 transactions. Over the 21 months that you have requested, that would
give us 61,194 transactions to go through to identify items over £500.

These cost estimates are just for one code in one service of the council.
There will more codes in other areas of the council in order to cover all
of the categories requested and the supplier could get paid monies for
more that one of the categories so costs will be higher that the figure
given.

ACC is unable to provide you with information on all transactions over
£500 from 1st April 2017 to 31st December 2018 as the cost of providing it
has been calculated as being in excess of the statutory maximum (£600). 
To explain this, it would involve an ACC Officer looking at 61,194
transaction details. This has been calculated at 5 minutes per file, at
the cost of £76,492.50 in total. These cost estimates are just for one
account in one service of the council. There will more accounts in other
areas of the council in order to cover all of the categories given in your
request.

In order to comply with its obligations under the terms of Section 16 of
the FOISA, ACC hereby give notice that we are refusing your request under
the terms of Section 12 - Excessive Cost of Compliance - of the FOISA.

ACC would be happy to discuss ways in which you may refine your request,
so we can provide some information of interest to you within the maximum
cost limits. Please do contact the Information Compliance team, who will
be happy to advise you, if this is something you would like to pursue.

We hope this helps with your request.

Yours sincerely,

Grant Webster

Access to Information Officer

INFORMATION ABOUT THE HANDLING OF YOUR REQUEST

ACC handled your request for information in accordance with the provisions
of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Please refer to the
attached PDF for more information about your rights under FOISA.

Grant Webster |Access to Information Officer

Aberdeen City Council | Access to Information Team | Customer Feedback
|Customer

Marischal College |Business Hub 17,  3^rd Floor | Broad Street | Aberdeen
| AB10 1AQ

Dial: 01224 522166

[1]www.aberdeencity.gov.uk | Twitter: @AberdeenCC |
Facebook.com/AberdeenCC

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail (including any attachment to it) is
confidential, protected by copyright and may be privileged. The
information contained in it should be used for its intended purposes only.
If you receive this email in error, notify the sender by reply email,
delete the received email and do not make use of, disclose or copy it.
Whilst we take reasonable precautions to ensure that our emails are free
from viruses, we cannot be responsible for any viruses transmitted with
this email and recommend that you subject any incoming email to your own
virus checking procedures. Unless related to Council business, the
opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and they do not
necessarily constitute those of Aberdeen City Council. Unless we expressly
say otherwise in this email or its attachments, neither this email nor its
attachments create, form part of or vary any contractual or unilateral
obligation. Aberdeen City Council's incoming and outgoing email is subject
to regular monitoring.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/

Dear Mr Prabhu,

Thank you for your request for a review, received on 7 February 2019, to
reconsider the information request FOI-19-0019 – Payments to Suppliers on
the basis that excessive cost was applied to our response.

If required, a Review Panel will be convened by Aberdeen City Council
(ACC) to give a fair and impartial decision. The Review Panel will consist
of individuals who have not handled the original request and will consider
the matter afresh.

The outcome of the Review will be relayed to you on or before 7 March
2019.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any queries relating to
the review.

Yours sincerely

Grant Webster

On behalf of Review Panel Clerk

FURTHER INFORMATION

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your request for an internal
review, you can apply directly to the Office of the Scottish Information
Commissioner (OSIC) for a decision. Generally, OSIC cannot make a decision
unless you have been through the ACC’s review procedure. To make an
application to OSIC, please write or email OSIC at:

The Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner

Kinburn Castle

Doubledykes Road

St Andrews

Fife

KY16 9DS

[1]www.itspublicknowledge.info

An application to OSIC must be made in writing within six months of
receipt of ACC’s Review Decision Notice. When applying to OSIC for a
decision you should give your name and address for correspondence. Please
note that OSIC will not be able to investigate if you have not used your
real name to make your information request. You must also specify:

● which request for information your requirement for review relates to

● the reason that you asked ACC to carry out a review of your request

● the reason why you are not satisfied with ACC's review outcome decision

The Commissioner will contact ACC and invite its comments on your
application. Thereafter (if no settlement has meantime been reached), the
Commissioner must reach a decision within 4 months of receiving your
application, or within such other period as is reasonable. You will
receive written notice of the outcome of the Commissioner’s decision.

Should you wish to appeal against the Scottish Information Commissioner's
decision, there is an appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law
only. Any such appeal must be made within 42 days after the date of the
decision has been issued.

Grant Webster |Access to Information Officer

Aberdeen City Council | Access to Information Team | Customer Feedback
|Customer

Marischal College |Business Hub 17,  3^rd Floor | Broad Street | Aberdeen
| AB10 1AQ

Dial: 01224 522166

[2]www.aberdeencity.gov.uk | Twitter: @AberdeenCC |
Facebook.com/AberdeenCC

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail (including any attachment to it) is
confidential, protected by copyright and may be privileged. The
information contained in it should be used for its intended purposes only.
If you receive this email in error, notify the sender by reply email,
delete the received email and do not make use of, disclose or copy it.
Whilst we take reasonable precautions to ensure that our emails are free
from viruses, we cannot be responsible for any viruses transmitted with
this email and recommend that you subject any incoming email to your own
virus checking procedures. Unless related to Council business, the
opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and they do not
necessarily constitute those of Aberdeen City Council. Unless we expressly
say otherwise in this email or its attachments, neither this email nor its
attachments create, form part of or vary any contractual or unilateral
obligation. Aberdeen City Council's incoming and outgoing email is subject
to regular monitoring.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/
2. http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/

Dear Mr Prabhu,

Thank you for your email of 7 February 2019 requesting that Aberdeen City
Council (ACC) review its handling of your request. I can now advise you
that we have undertaken an internal review of our decision and the
findings are set out below.

Review details

You requested that we review our decision based on the following:-

I would like to appeal against the Council’s decision to refuse
information as they feel the cost would exceed the statutory maximum
(£500).

All councils now have a sophisticated accounting system which enables
information to be downloaded using the in-built software. This software
should have filters to enable data without compromising any sensitive
information. As an accountant myself I use this facility extensively.

We feel the cost in downloading and assessing the data should not exceed
£600 as much of the work would be done by the machine itself. We therefore
would like to appeal against the council’s refusal to provide information
as they feel the cost will exceed the threshold.

Review outcome

Unfortunately, the finance system we use does not allow this information
to be downloaded using built in software and we are required to use
separate reporting software to extract the information.

Our ledger system is not set up to provide information in the categories
requested so we would have to download the information contained within
the various appropriate financial codes and then review invoices to
allocate to the correct category. We also have several suppliers that come
under two or more categories so once again the invoices all need to be
looked at individually to categorise them leading to an excessive cost
charge. This is a manual task and, as previously advised, we consider that
this will take an officer looking at approximately 61,194 transactions for
one code only. At 5 minutes per transaction, this is estimated to cost in
excess of £600. This is not taking into account any other codes that will
be required to be checked also.

As such, Aberdeen City Council upholds its original response.

What happens next?

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your request for an internal
review, you can apply directly to the Office of the Scottish Information
Commissioner (OSIC) for a decision. Generally, OSIC cannot make a decision
unless you have been through the ACC’s review procedure. To make an
application to OSIC, please write or email OSIC at:

The Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner

Kinburn Castle

Doubledykes Road

St Andrews

Fife

KY16 9DS

[1]www.itspublicknowledge.info

An application to OSIC must be made in writing within six months of
receipt of ACC’s Review Decision Notice. When applying to OSIC for a
decision you should give your name and address for correspondence. Please
note that OSIC will not be able to investigate if you have not used your
real name to make your information request. You must also specify:

● which request for information your requirement for review relates to

● the reason that you asked ACC to carry out a review of your request

● the reason why you are not satisfied with ACC's review outcome decision

The Commissioner will contact ACC and invite its comments on your
application. Thereafter (if no settlement has meantime been reached), the
Commissioner must reach a decision within 4 months of receiving your
application, or within such other period as is reasonable. You will
receive written notice of the outcome of the Commissioner’s decision.

Should you wish to appeal against the Scottish Information Commissioner's
decision, there is an appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law
only. Any such appeal must be made within 42 days after the date of the
decision has been issued.

Yours sincerely,

Grant Webster

On behalf of Review Panel Clerk

Grant Webster |Access to Information Officer

Aberdeen City Council | Access to Information Team | Customer Feedback
|Customer

Marischal College |Business Hub 17,  3^rd Floor | Broad Street | Aberdeen
| AB10 1AQ

Dial: 01224 522166

[2]www.aberdeencity.gov.uk | Twitter: @AberdeenCC |
Facebook.com/AberdeenCC

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail (including any attachment to it) is
confidential, protected by copyright and may be privileged. The
information contained in it should be used for its intended purposes only.
If you receive this email in error, notify the sender by reply email,
delete the received email and do not make use of, disclose or copy it.
Whilst we take reasonable precautions to ensure that our emails are free
from viruses, we cannot be responsible for any viruses transmitted with
this email and recommend that you subject any incoming email to your own
virus checking procedures. Unless related to Council business, the
opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and they do not
necessarily constitute those of Aberdeen City Council. Unless we expressly
say otherwise in this email or its attachments, neither this email nor its
attachments create, form part of or vary any contractual or unilateral
obligation. Aberdeen City Council's incoming and outgoing email is subject
to regular monitoring.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/
2. http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/