Freedom of Information Request Statistics

The request was successful.

Dear West Berkshire Council,

Please could you supply:

1 Freedom of Information/EIR Request Statistics for the year 2012.
2 Freedom of Information/EIR Statistics for the year 2013 to date.
3 Where exemptions/partial exemptions have been applied please can you detail the relevant section no of the FOIAct/ EI Regulations.
4 The date that the 'disclosure log' web page was last updated.

I have consulted your web site http://www.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?a... and the last published statistics as at today's date ( 21/8/2013) are for 2011.

Should you require any clarification of the information I am requesting please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours faithfully,

J A Giggins

Suzanne Kenchington, West Berkshire Council

FoI/2013/739

 

Dear Mrs Giggins,

 

Request for information: FoI & EIR Statistics

 

Thank you for your request received 21.08.2013; we will seek to respond
within twenty working days.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Suzi Kenchington 

Information Support Officer

Strategic Support,

West Berkshire Council, Council Offices, Market Street, Newbury, RG14 5LD

email:  [1][email address]

' 01635 519860 (external)      '  2860 (internal)      

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Sue Broughton, West Berkshire Council

4 Attachments

FoI/2013/739

Dear Mrs Giggins,

Request for information: FoI & EIR Statistics

You have asked for:

1 Freedom of Information/EIR Request Statistics for the year 2012.
Attached
2 Freedom of Information/EIR Statistics for the year 2013 to date.
Attached
3 Where exemptions/partial exemptions have been applied please can you
detail the relevant section no of the FOIAct/ EI Regulations.
Attached
4 The date that the 'disclosure log' web page was last updated.
The date that a web page on the Council's Internet was updated appears
at the foot of the page. However, documents on web pages can be updated
separately.

If you are dissatisfied with our response, you may ask for an internal
review. Please explain fully your reasons for requesting a review. You
should contact David Lowe, Scrutiny & Partnerships Manager, Strategic
Support, Council Offices, Market Street, Newbury RG14 5LD, email
[email address] if you wish to request a review. If you are not
content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to
apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
www.ico.gov.uk


Yours sincerely

Sue Broughton

Information Management Officer

Please note that I work part time and messages may not be answered
until I am next in the office.

* Strategic Support West Berkshire Council, Council Offices, Market
Street, Newbury RG14 5LD

Email: [email address]

' 01635 519747 (external) ' 2747 (internal)

You should be aware that all emails received and sent by this Council
are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and therefore may be
disclosed to a third party.

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Dear Sue Broughton,

Many thanks for such a speedy reply.

Apologies for the wording of q4 - i was caught out (again) by the fact that I accessed the page from a mobile device, which provides a cut down view and does not show the page date. Having switched to 'desktop' view I can now see that the page was last updated on 23/11/2012.

In light of this information, and your comment that ' documents on web pages can be updated separately', I would like to clarify/ expand upon q4. What I am seeking to establish is how up to date the WBC disclosure log is, and the current/recent questions asked/answered/refused by the Council. I have looked at a couple of the individual pages ( parking and CEO expenses) and both appear to be out of date ( ie information is to March 2012).

Do you perhaps maintain a more detailed log of requests for the above time periods that you could disclose ( in redacted form - I am not seeking the identities of requestors)?

Many thanks,

Yours sincerely,

J A Giggins

Sue Broughton, West Berkshire Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mrs Giggins,

Thank you for your email. There is no legal requirement to have a
Disclosure Log. Pages on the Log are updated as and when time is
available to do so, and/or when we receive a substantive request for
such data.

In addition, at present we are moving to a slightly different website
layout, and amongst the changes is a move from documents being placed at
the side of the page to documents being placed on the page as in-line
links and in pdf format. I am working through the pages I author to make
this change and update this and other information.

As an example, the parking page is currently being revised as the
information is now published elsewhere - Annual Parking reports here:
http://www.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?a... - and this page
should have been approved by the editor today. There are several other
pages (RIPA, Voluntary Sector information, CEO expenses) where I am
awaiting information from the Services to update the information on the
website.

The top level Disclosure Log page is not suitable for inline links (it
will make the page very long) so a new page has been created for FoI
statistics and the documents re-published in pdf. Again, hopefully this
will have been approved by the editor today.

Some Disclosure Log pages are being removed as the information has not
been requested for some time. We also review the requests which have
come in to see what new information could be included.

As far as the request log goes, this is held in excel format and
includes the details of dates of requests and responses, requesters,
addresses, and the requests made, and is organised by month. Some of
these columns could be omitted to anonymise the entries. However, I
would have to look through the description of each request to make sure
no personal data appeared in these sections of the log. I have done this
once for a requester (they only wanted the list of requests for 2010-11)
and attach the log created to answer this. This took about four hours
work to review and collate the data for 622 requests. So far in 2012 and
2013 combined we have had 1569 requests, so obviously this would take
considerably longer.

Yours sincerely

Sue Broughton

Information Management Officer

Please note that I work part time and messages may not be answered
until I am next in the office.

* Strategic Support West Berkshire Council, Council Offices, Market
Street, Newbury RG14 5LD

Email: [email address]

' 01635 519747 (external) ' 2747 (internal)

You should be aware that all emails received and sent by this Council
are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and therefore may be
disclosed to a third party.

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

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