From which government, NGO or Private companies do universities receive funding’ for research?

Gwrthodwyd y cais gan De Montfort University.

Dear De Montfort University,

I am writing you for a Request of information, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) on the following topics: “From which government authorities, NGO or Private companies do universities receive funding’ for research?”, a research based on information of public interest, for journalism purposes.

Can you provide information to the following questions?
1) What is the total amount that the university received in funds for research, industrial consultancy fees and/or funded researches from government, NGO or private companies in the last five financial years (from 2013 till 2017)? The information should be broken down by organization or company name, year per year (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), in a CSV format, if possible.
2) A portfolio statement for the funds the university has investments in. If you do not have a copy of it, can you provide a list of funds and corresponding management companies? Details should be broken down year by year, for the last financial years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), provided in a CSV format, if possible.
3) Can you provide details of research projects (such as executive summary and details of reports’ publication, university department and researchers’ names) of projects whose funds exceed £50,000, in the same period of time (2013-2017)?

Yours faithfully,

Santino Pani

Fraser Marshall, De Montfort University

2nd Feb

I am on leave until 5th Feb. If you require an urgent response, please
contact Neil Faver, Governance Manager at [email address].

For FOI requests, please contact [De Montfort University request email]

Yours sincerely,

Fraser Marshall
Information Governance Manager
Information Technology & Media Services
 
DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY
T: +44 (0) 116 257 7655
E: [email address]
W: dmu.ac.uk
 
Responsible for: Freedom of Information, Data Protection Act compliance
and Records Management

Justine Asquith, De Montfort University

1 Atodiad

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

 

Thank you for your email request below.

 

Your request is being considered and if the information is held you will
receive the information requested within the statutory timescale of 20
working days as defined by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, subject to
the information not being exempt.

 

If the time taken to meet your request is likely to exceed 18 hours, we
will contact you and ask you amend your request to bring it below this
time limit. We will assist you with suggestions of how this might be
achieved.

 

I may also contact you if the request needs to be clarified; this is to
ensure that we provide you with the information you require.

 

Please note that some information you have requested may not be provided
to you; this will only be information that can be withheld by law.  In
most cases the reasons will be explained to you along with your copy of
any information that can be released to you.

In order to ensure a prompt response to any communication, please ensure
that any further emails are copied to [1][De Montfort University request email].

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Fraser Marshall

Information Governance Manager

Information Technology & Media Services

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

T: +44 (0) 116 257 7655

E: [2][email address]

W: dmu.ac.uk

 

Responsible for: Freedom of Information, Data Protection Act compliance
and Records Management

 

[3]TEF email signature footer

 

 

 

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Dear FOI Reviewer, De Montfort University,
My name is Santino Pani. I am a journalist, and I am conducting a research about funds that universities receive from GOV, NGO, and/or private companies. This research is going to be published in a few months in a newspaper, therefore it is of public interest.
I made a request for information, under the FOIA 2000, to your university on the 2nd of February, and your university had to respond within 20 working days, and not later than the 2nd of March.
Till today I didn’t receive any information from you, and now you are almost one month overdue in responding it, and you are not complying with the law obligations.
I am asking therefore to process it through your internal reviewer, before I take a further step asking the Information Commissioner to start an investigation on your university.
I resume the questions I asked you, and at this stage I don’t accept any excuse or refusal, as your complete silence shows a complete negligence and lack of transparency, and your action (or to better say, un-action) is unacceptable.
Please answer to the following questions:
1) What is the total amount that the university received in funds for research, industrial consultancy fees and/or funded researches from government, NGO or private companies in the last five financial years (from 2013 till 2017)? The information should be broken down by organization or company name, year per year (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), in a xlsx spreadsheet format, or equivalent.
2) A portfolio statement for the funds the university has investments in. If you do not have a copy of it, can you provide a list of funds and corresponding management companies? Details should be broken down year by year, for the last financial years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), provided in a xlsx spreadsheet format, or equivalent.
3) Can you provide details of research projects (such as executive summary and details of reports’ publication, university department and researchers’ names) of projects whose funds exceed £50,000, in the same period of time (2013-2017)?
Now by law you have to respond to this request within 20 days, and not later than the 30th of April.
After this date I will ask a formal request to the Information Commissioner.
Yours sincerely,
Santino Pani

Justine Asquith, De Montfort University

Dear Mr Pani,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000-INFORMATION REQUEST

 

Please accept my apologies for our failure to respond sooner. I hope it
has not greatly inconvenienced you. The University has decided that your
request for information cannot be met in full on grounds of cost unless
you able to modify it to bring it below the cost limit, or is exempt on
the grounds of being publicly accessible elsewhere.

 

1)    What is the total amount that the university received in funds for
research, industrial consultancy fees and/or funded researches from
government, NGO or private companies in the last five financial years
(from 2013 till 2017)? The information should be broken down by
organization or company name, year per year (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016,
2017), in a xlsx spreadsheet format, or equivalent.

 

DMU does not currently have the requested information in a centralised
management system that would allow easy reporting. The request would
therefore require manual

For academic year 2016/17 alone, there are 313 projects, of which 204
would need to be looked at manually in order to determine the requested
information. Using a conservative estimate of 5 minutes to review each
project, this would equate to 1,020 minutes or 17 hours. It is anticipated
that the other years are likely to take longer still, meaning the cost of
locating and retrieving the information requested calculated according to
the government’s Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit)
Regulations 2004 would cost at least £2,125 which is in excess of the
upper limit of £450 set in the Regulations.

 

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as
a Refusal Notice.

 

You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the
cost to below this upper limit. The university could produce one year's
figures within the time limit.

 

2)    A portfolio statement for the funds the university has investments
in. If you do not have a copy of it, can you provide a list of funds and
corresponding management companies? Details should be broken down year by
year, for the last financial years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017),
provided in a xlsx spreadsheet format, or equivalent.

 

This information is exempt under S21: Information Accessible by other
means. The university uses only one portfolio fund, COIF Charities
Investment Fund. The information relating to this fund is publicly through
the CCLA publication of fact quarterly fact sheets, the most recent of
which is available here:

[1]https://www.ccla.co.uk/sites/default/fil...

 

3)    Can you provide details of research projects (such as executive
summary and details of reports’ publication, university department and
researchers’ names) of projects whose funds exceed £50,000, in the same
period of time (2013-2017)?

 

Please see response to Q1.

 

I am sorry that your request is not being met on this occasion.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Justine Asquith on behalf of the

Information Governance Manager

Information Technology & Media Services

 

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

T: +44 (0) 116 257 7655

E: [2][email address]

W: dmu.ac.uk

 

Responsible for: Freedom of Information, Data Protection Act compliance
and Records Management

 

You have the right to complain to the University about this decision.  If
you wish to do this please write to:

 

Regulations and Complaints Manager

Corporate Services

0.13 Trinity House

Leicester

 

If you are subsequently not satisfied with the University’s response to
your complaint you have a right of appeal to the independent Information
Commissioner at:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545 700

[3]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

 

Further information about the operation of the Act is available from the
University’s website [4]www.dmu.ac.uk and the information leaflet in
public reception areas in University buildings. 

 

References

Visible links
1. https://www.ccla.co.uk/sites/default/fil...
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/
4. http://www.dmu.ac.uk/

Dear Mrs Asquith,

Don’t assume people are stupid. I sent a FOI request to your university on the 2nd of February, and you responded on the 6th same month just as aknowledge of receiving it, and till yesterday I didn’t get any further communication from you, almost after 2 months. By law you had to respond within 20 working days.

You responded just one day after I asked for an internal review sent just yesterday, and you responded with a refusal. This shows me that you didn’t conduct any research at all.
My previous mail request was directed to your FOI Reviewer, not to you, and I expected someone else would deal with it.

Now please pass this request to your internal rewiewer, or I will write to the Information Commissioner, with no further notice.

Regards,

Santino Pani

Justine Asquith, De Montfort University

Dear Mr Pani,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Your request for an internal review has been passed to Tony Heath, Head of
Legal Services who will be in contact in due course.

 

Kind regards

 

Justine Asquith on behalf of the

Information Governance Manager

Information Technology & Media Services

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

T: +44 (0) 116 257 7655

E: [2][email address]

W: dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Tony Heath, De Montfort University

Dear Mr Pani

 

I write further to the communication below from Justine Asquith.

 

Please accept this initial email as confirmation that I shall be
undertaking a review. I shall write shortly with further details and my
intended timeline.

 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Kind regards

 

Tony

 

Anthony Heath

Head of Legal Services

 

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

Trinity House, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

 

Office: +44 (0) 116 257 7026

Mobile: +44 (0) 7980 894 801

Email: [1][email address]

Web: [2]www.dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

From: Justine Asquith
Sent: 29 March 2018 09:14
To: [FOI #462355 email]
Cc: Fraser Marshall <[email address]>; Tony Heath
<[email address]>
Subject: FW: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - From
which government, NGO or Private companies do universities receive
funding’ for research?
Importance: High

 

Dear Mr Pani,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Your request for an internal review has been passed to Tony Heath, Head of
Legal Services who will be in contact in due course.

 

Kind regards

 

Justine Asquith on behalf of the

Information Governance Manager

Information Technology & Media Services

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

T: +44 (0) 116 257 7655

E: [2][email address]

W: dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Tony Heath, De Montfort University

Dear Mr Pani

 

I write further to  my email sent on 29^th March 2018.

 

I shall be undertaking a review of the initial decision to refuse your
request, in part, on grounds of cost or the information requested is
exempt on the grounds of being publicly accessible elsewhere. I also note
you are unhappy with the response time.

 

I shall endeavour to deal with the review within 20 working days. In light
of the days the university has been closed this would usually be by 30^th
April. I am, however, out of the office on 7 of those working days, and
the university is closed on 7^th May so I intend to provide you with a
response by 10^th May 2018. If it appears that I will not be able to
respond within this timeframe, I shall contact you with a revised estimate
of my response date.

 

Kind regards

 

Tony

 

Anthony Heath

Head of Legal Services

 

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

Trinity House, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

 

Office: +44 (0) 116 257 7026

Mobile: +44 (0) 7980 894 801

Email: [1][email address]

Web: [2]www.dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

From: Tony Heath
Sent: 29 March 2018 11:24
To: [FOI #462355 email]
Subject: RE: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - From
which government, NGO or Private companies do universities receive
funding’ for research?

 

Dear Mr Pani

 

I write further to the communication below from Justine Asquith.

 

Please accept this initial email as confirmation that I shall be
undertaking a review. I shall write shortly with further details and my
intended timeline.

 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Kind regards

 

Tony

 

Anthony Heath

Head of Legal Services

 

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

Trinity House, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

 

Office: +44 (0) 116 257 7026

Mobile: +44 (0) 7980 894 801

Email: [3][email address]

Web: [4]www.dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

From: Justine Asquith
Sent: 29 March 2018 09:14
To: [5][FOI #462355 email]
Cc: Fraser Marshall <[6][email address]>; Tony Heath
<[7][email address]>
Subject: FW: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - From
which government, NGO or Private companies do universities receive
funding’ for research?
Importance: High

 

Dear Mr Pani,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Your request for an internal review has been passed to Tony Heath, Head of
Legal Services who will be in contact in due course.

 

Kind regards

 

Justine Asquith on behalf of the

Information Governance Manager

Information Technology & Media Services

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

T: +44 (0) 116 257 7655

E: [2][email address]

W: dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Tony Heath, De Montfort University

Dear Mr Pani

 

I write further to my email below.

 

My enquiries are taking a little longer than I initially envisaged. I may
well require additional time before I am able to complete my review.

 

I would like to revise my time estimate to 24 May 2018 to respond. If I am
able to respond before that, I shall.

 

I do apologise.

 

If you have any questions, please contact me.

 

Kind regards

 

Tony

 

Anthony Heath

Head of Legal Services

 

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

Trinity House, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

 

Office: +44 (0) 116 257 7026

Mobile: +44 (0) 7980 894 801

Email: [1][email address]

Web: [2]www.dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

From: Tony Heath
Sent: 06 April 2018 08:24
To: '[FOI #462355 email]'
<[FOI #462355 email]>
Subject: RE: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - From
which government, NGO or Private companies do universities receive
funding’ for research?

 

Dear Mr Pani

 

I write further to  my email sent on 29^th March 2018.

 

I shall be undertaking a review of the initial decision to refuse your
request, in part, on grounds of cost or the information requested is
exempt on the grounds of being publicly accessible elsewhere. I also note
you are unhappy with the response time.

 

I shall endeavour to deal with the review within 20 working days. In light
of the days the university has been closed this would usually be by 30^th
April. I am, however, out of the office on 7 of those working days, and
the university is closed on 7^th May so I intend to provide you with a
response by 10^th May 2018. If it appears that I will not be able to
respond within this timeframe, I shall contact you with a revised estimate
of my response date.

 

Kind regards

 

Tony

 

Anthony Heath

Head of Legal Services

 

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

Trinity House, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

 

Office: +44 (0) 116 257 7026

Mobile: +44 (0) 7980 894 801

Email: [3][email address]

Web: [4]www.dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

From: Tony Heath
Sent: 29 March 2018 11:24
To: [5][FOI #462355 email]
Subject: RE: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - From
which government, NGO or Private companies do universities receive
funding’ for research?

 

Dear Mr Pani

 

I write further to the communication below from Justine Asquith.

 

Please accept this initial email as confirmation that I shall be
undertaking a review. I shall write shortly with further details and my
intended timeline.

 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Kind regards

 

Tony

 

Anthony Heath

Head of Legal Services

 

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

Trinity House, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

 

Office: +44 (0) 116 257 7026

Mobile: +44 (0) 7980 894 801

Email: [6][email address]

Web: [7]www.dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

From: Justine Asquith
Sent: 29 March 2018 09:14
To: [8][FOI #462355 email]
Cc: Fraser Marshall <[9][email address]>; Tony Heath
<[10][email address]>
Subject: FW: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - From
which government, NGO or Private companies do universities receive
funding’ for research?
Importance: High

 

Dear Mr Pani,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Your request for an internal review has been passed to Tony Heath, Head of
Legal Services who will be in contact in due course.

 

Kind regards

 

Justine Asquith on behalf of the

Information Governance Manager

Information Technology & Media Services

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

T: +44 (0) 116 257 7655

E: [2][email address]

W: dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Tony Heath, De Montfort University

1 Atodiad

Dear Mr Pani

 

I write further to my email of 3 May 2018.

 

I have now completed my review. As stated in my email of 6 April, I have
undertaken a review of the initial decision to refuse your request, in
part, on grounds of cost or the information requested is exempt on the
grounds of being publicly accessible elsewhere. In doing so, I have
reviewed the relevant information and assessed what decision I would make
based on the relevant evidence at the date of the request. In summary, I
find the initial decision to be a reasonable one based on the detail and
scope of your request, and one that I would also have made in assessing
your request. To assist I have set out below your request, the initial
response and my findings and/or comments:

 

Request 1

What is the total amount that the university received in funds for 
research, industrial consultancy fees and/or funded researches from 
government, NGO or private companies in the last five financial years 
(from 2013 till 2017)? The information should be broken down by 
organization or company name, year per year (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 
2017), in a xlsx spreadsheet format, or equivalent.

 

Initial response

DMU does not currently have the requested information in a centralised
management system that would allow easy reporting. The request would 
therefore require manual

 

For academic year 2016/17 alone, there are 313 projects, of which 204 
would need to be looked at manually in order to determine the requested 
information. Using a conservative estimate of 5 minutes to review each 
project, this would equate to 1,020 minutes or 17 hours. It is
anticipated  that the other years are likely to take longer still, meaning
the cost of  locating and retrieving the information requested calculated
according to  the government’s Freedom of Information (Fees and
Appropriate Limit)  Regulations 2004 would cost at least £2,125 which is
in excess of the  upper limit of £450 set in the Regulations.

 

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts
as  a Refusal Notice.

 

You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the 
cost to below this upper limit. The university could produce one year's 
figures within the time limit.

 

Review findings and/or comments

Paragraph one above appears incomplete; the second sentence should confirm
that to answer this request will require a substantial amount of manual
checking of records. I think this is apparent from the subsequent
explanation, however the position could have been made clearer in
paragraph one.

 

From my enquiries, and review of information, I can confirm that the
university does not hold this information in one place or in any form of
easily accessible management system. I have seen the information that
supports the assessment of time involved and there is no reason or basis
to doubt that information.

 

Accordingly, I believe that the use of the exemption available under
section 12 is appropriate.

 

 

Request 2

A portfolio statement for the funds the university has investments  in. If
you do not have a copy of it, can you provide a list of funds and 
corresponding management companies? Details should be broken down year by 
year, for the last financial years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), 
provided in a xlsx spreadsheet format, or equivalent.

 

Initial response

This information is exempt under S21: Information Accessible by other 
means. The university uses only one portfolio fund, COIF Charities 
Investment Fund. The information relating to this fund is publicly
through  the CCLA publication of fact quarterly fact sheets, the most
recent of  which is available here:

[1]https://www.ccla.co.uk/sites/default/fil...

 

Review findings and/or comments

I have not been able to find a portfolio statement, but that may be due to
the university only using one portfolio fund, the details of which have
been provided.

 

From my enquiries, the university does not hold the information you have
requested. The university only has access to the publicly available
information, which can be accessed through the link provided. I believe
the use of the section 21 exemption to be appropriate.

 

 

Request 3

Can you provide details of research projects (such as executive  summary
and details of reports’ publication, university department and 
researchers’ names) of projects whose funds exceed £50,000, in the same 
period of time (2013-2017)?

 

Initial response 

Please see response to Q1.

 

Review findings and/or comments

From my enquiries, I can confirm that the university does not hold this
information in one place or in any form of easily accessible management
system. The time involved in manually collating this information means the
use of the section 12 exemption is appropriate and a response I would also
make.

 

 

I do note that the time to respond to your initial request was outside the
prescribed period. I would like to reiterate the apology made on 27 March
2018.

 

I suspect that this is not the outcome that you hoped for from the review.
The university is happy to work with you to refine your request so that
the time spent in meeting the request can be within the prescribed limits.

 

From your previous communications, it appears that you are aware of you
option to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office
pursuant to section 50, however I thought it prudent to remind you of this
option.

 

Kind regards

 

Tony

 

Anthony Heath

Head of Legal Services

 

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY

Trinity House, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

 

Office: +44 (0) 116 257 7026

Mobile: +44 (0) 7980 894 801

Email: [2][email address]

Web: [3]www.dmu.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

 

[4]TEF email signature footer

 

 

References

Visible links
1. https://www.ccla.co.uk/sites/default/fil...
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.dmu.ac.uk/