Information request
Our reference: 42185246
Your reference: [FOI #863950 email]

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Dear Mr Swift
 
Freedom of Information Act 2000
 
 
Thank you for your request for information that was received on 23 June
2022 concerning:
 
Dear Birmingham City Council,

BCC's contract with Amey ceased on 31/03/2020 and a new Interim Service
Contract was awarded to Kier Highways Ltd. Please provide me with the
asset register 'handover' document detailing the highways assets, their
condition* and the date of the last inspection. If no such document was
created, please provide me with the last asset register compiled by Amey
and the first by Kier Highways Ltd.
Please provide these in excel format with associated notes about the
condition, the due date for maintenance and renewal.

Yours faithfully,

Mr P Swift

*Safety Inspections are designed to identify all defects likely to create
danger or serious
inconvenience to users of the network or wider community. The risk of
danger is assessed on site and the defect identified with an appropriate
priority response
The Contractor shall keep full records of all inspections, defects
identified and all repairs that are subsequently carried out within
Birmingham City Council's Management Information Systems (MIS). Such
records will be used to defend public liability claims....
 
We are dealing with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
and we aim to send a response by 21 July 2022 or as soon as possible.  We
apologise for the delay due to a notification error from the
'whatdotheyknow' site which has resulted in a delay in receiving your
request.
 
In some case, a fee may be payable. If we decide a fee is payable, we will
send you a fee notice and we will require you to pay the fee before
proceeding with your request.
 
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 may restrict the release of some or
all of the information you have requested. We will carry out an assessment
and if any exemptions apply to some or all of the information then we
might not provide that information to you. We will inform you if this is
the case and advise you of your rights to request an internal review and
to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
 
We will also advise you if we cannot provide you with the information
requested for any other reason together with the reason(s) why and details
of how you may appeal (if appropriate).

You may experience understandable delays when making information rights
requests post pandemic, this could be due to changes in working patterns,
sickness and access to information not held electronically.

Yours sincerely

Jenny Bent
Business Support Coordinator
Digital & Customer Support Services
[email address]
 
 
 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.
BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL DISCLAIMER This email contains proprietary
confidential information some or all of which may be legally privileged
and/or subject to the provisions of privacy legislation. It is intended
solely for the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, an
addressing or transmission error has misdirected this e-mail; you must not
use, disclose, copy, print or disseminate the information contained within
this e-mail. Please notify the author immediately by replying to this
email. Any views expressed in this email are those of the individual
sender, except where the sender specifically states these to be the views
of Birmingham City Council. This email has been scanned for all viruses
and all reasonable precautions have been taken to ensure that no viruses
are present. Birmingham City Council cannot accept responsibility for any
loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments.
Birmingham City Council The information contained within this e-mail (and
any attachment) sent by Birmingham City Council is confidential and may be
legally privileged. It is intended only for the named recipient or entity
to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient please
accept our apologies and notify the sender immediately. Unauthorised
access, use, disclosure, storage or copying is not permitted and may be
unlawful. Any e-mail including its content may be monitored and used by
Birmingham City Council for reasons of security and for monitoring
internal compliance with the office policy on staff use. E-mail blocking
software may also be used. Any views or opinions presented are solely
those of the originator and do not necessarily represent those of
Birmingham City Council. We cannot guarantee that this message or any
attachment is virus free or has not been intercepted and amended.

Dear Mr Swift
 
Thank you for your email.
 
We apologise for the delay in responding to your request, which is due to
a system notification error on the 'Whatdotheyknow' site this has resulted
in a delay and your request was not received by us until 20/06/2022.  We
will endeavour to reply to your request as soon as possible.
 
Kind regards
 
Jenny Bent
Digital & Customer Support Services

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Dear Birmingham City Council,

the request was made in MAY

The response was due JUNE

you received the request a month ago. You are in breach of the Act again.

Kindly explain your statement the response is due in JULY

Yours sincerely,

Mr P Swift

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

 
 
 
 
Information request
Our reference: 42185246
Your reference: [FOI #863950 email]

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Dear Mr Swift
 
Thank you for your request for information received on 23 June 2022.
 
Please find attached our response to your request.
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
Jenny Bent
Business Support Coordinator
Digital & Customer Support Services
[email address]
 
 
 
Re Use of Public Sector Information
Where Birmingham City Council is the copyright holder of any information
that may be released, re-use for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes is permitted without further reference to the City Council. Where
the re-use is for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, the applicant
should notify the City Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms
for re-use
 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.
 
 
BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL DISCLAIMER This email contains proprietary
confidential information some or all of which may be legally privileged
and/or subject to the provisions of privacy legislation. It is intended
solely for the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, an
addressing or transmission error has misdirected this e-mail; you must not
use, disclose, copy, print or disseminate the information contained within
this e-mail. Please notify the author immediately by replying to this
email. Any views expressed in this email are those of the individual
sender, except where the sender specifically states these to be the views
of Birmingham City Council. This email has been scanned for all viruses
and all reasonable precautions have been taken to ensure that no viruses
are present. Birmingham City Council cannot accept responsibility for any
loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments.
Birmingham City Council The information contained within this e-mail (and
any attachment) sent by Birmingham City Council is confidential and may be
legally privileged. It is intended only for the named recipient or entity
to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient please
accept our apologies and notify the sender immediately. Unauthorised
access, use, disclosure, storage or copying is not permitted and may be
unlawful. Any e-mail including its content may be monitored and used by
Birmingham City Council for reasons of security and for monitoring
internal compliance with the office policy on staff use. E-mail blocking
software may also be used. Any views or opinions presented are solely
those of the originator and do not necessarily represent those of
Birmingham City Council. We cannot guarantee that this message or any
attachment is virus free or has not been intercepted and amended.

Dear Mr Swift

Further to your email dated 30 July 2022 and your follow-up email of 2
August 2022, I can confirm that the response was sent to you on 28 June
2022. A further copy of our response is attached for your information. The
response to your FOI request refence number FOI 42687463,  addressed the
council's issues with WDTK, so we have no further comments to make.

Yours sincerely

Digital & Customer Support Services

══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Dear Birmingham City Council,

Please note the WDTK annotation to this request:

Sally Reader left an annotation ( 2 August 2022)
This request was delivered to the council's email servers shortly after it
was sent, and we got a positive response back in-line with what a normal
successful email delivery looks like. As is our standard practice we used
an email address which the council asked us to use to send requests to.

We suspect that the council is generally not processing requests made via
WhatDoTheyKnow based on the email. Instead we think the council is using a
feed provided via a service called iCasework provided by a company called
Civica. We at WhatDoTheyKnow/mySociety provide a feed of data to
iCasework/Civica. It appears there has been a problem with this
alternative non-email route of communication. We have investigated, and we
don't believe the issue was at our end.

While the feed we provide was unavailable on a small number of occasions,
we would not have expected this to cause a problem as the data was present
in the feed when it was successfully obtained via subsequent requests. The
feed is requested from WhatDoTheyKnow approximately every eight minutes.

A number of councils asked us to stop sending them requests by email
because they obtained them via the feed. We refused to do this because of
the proof of delivery we get when we send requests by email.

We suspect that the council probably aren't reading emails sent to the
address they've given us, and are relying on the feed. We presume that the
council still has the emails and could revert to them if they had a
problem with their feed.

It is the public bodies' responsibility to manage how they deal with
incoming requests, and is not something we have control of. Our
understanding is that whatever issue there was is no-longer ongoing.'

Please explain the contradiction with your response.

Yours sincerely,

Mr P Swift

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir