LOBO loan details for 2015/16 & 2018/19

The request was partially successful.

Research for Action

Dear Powys County Council,

A. Please provide a spreadsheet in .xls format containing the following information for each of the LOBO loans you held in the 2015/16 financial year (please use a row for each loan and a column for each parameter indicated below):
1. Internal reference number
2. Principal
3. Initial counterparty
4. Date loan was signed
5. Drawdown date
6. Maturity date
7. Option period (number of months)
8. Start date for teaser rate (if applicable)
9. Teaser interest rate (if applicable - intended as the discount rate sometimes offered before the initial rate)
10. Start date for initial rate
11. Initial interest rate (intended as the rate set for the term of the loan until the first option is called)
12. First option date
13. Has the option been exercised?
14. Most recent date when option was exercised (if applicable)
15. Interest rate in 2015/16
16. Interest paid in 2015/16
17. Fair value in March 2016
18. Interest rate in 2018/19
19. Interest paid in 2018/19
20. Fair value in March 2019
21. Current counterparty
22. Name of treasury management advisor when the loan was taken out
23. Name of broker who arranged the loan
24. Fee paid to the broker for the loan

B. Please provide copies of:
1. The original LOBO loan contracts
2. The invoices for the broker fees

Kind regards,

Ludovica Rogers

Information Compliance, Powys County Council

 

Cyfarwyddwr Strategol: Rheoli Gwybodaeth/
Adnoddau
Information Compliance
Acting Director: Resources
Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall

Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
  If calling please ask for / Os yn galw
gofynnwch am
 
Information Compliance
 
Tel / Ffôn:  01597 82 7543        
 
Email/Llythyru electronig:
  [1][email address]

  Our ref / Ein cyf:  F2019-0532

Date / Dyddiad:   03/05/19

 

 

Request Accepted

 

FREEDOM of INFORMATION ACT 2000

Reference No: F2019/0532

 

Dear Ms Rogers

 

Thank you for your request for information, received at this office on 
03/05/2019, in which you requested details of the following:

 

LOBO Loans

 

The above is a summary of your request. The full details of the
information sought is provided to the officer to whom the request is
tasked.

 

Your request will now be considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act, subject
to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third
party. In some circumstances Powys County Council may be unable to achieve
this deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised
time-scale at the earliest opportunity.

 

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information you request. If this is the case you will be informed and
the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment
from you. If you choose not to make a payment then your request will
remain unanswered.

 

Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to
another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest
possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.

 

The due date for responding to this request for information is 20/05/2019.

 

Should you need to discuss this further please contact the Information
Compliance Team on 01597 827543.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Information Compliance Team

 

 

We keep your details safe and we have updated our privacy notice in line
with the requirements set out in General Data Protection Regulations.  We
will only ever use the details you share with us to enable us to undertake
our statutory obligations.  You can find out more by looking on our web
site. [2]https://en.powys.gov.uk/privacy

 

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2. https://en.powys.gov.uk/privacy

Information Compliance, Powys County Council

Dear Ms Rogers,

 

We regret the delay you have experienced with this request. We acknowledge
that Powys County Council has failed in its obligation under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000, to provide you with a response to your request
within the statutory timescale of 20 working days. Please accept our
apologies for this and for any inconvenience this may have caused.

 

We are currently compiling all information for the request and once
completed it will be sent for authorisation.

 

Kind Regards,

Information Compliance Team

 

 

 

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Information Compliance, Powys County Council

8 Attachments

Rheoli Gwybodaeth/

Information Compliance

Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall

Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
  If calling please ask for / Os yn galw gofynnwch am

   

  Tel / Ffôn:  01597 82 7543        

  Email/Llythyru electronig: [1][email address]

Our ref / Ein cyf:  F2019-0532

Date / Dyddiad:   01/07/2019

 

Reference No: F2019-0532

 

 

Dear Ms Rogers

 

Thank you for your request for information dated 03/05/2019 concerning
LOBO Loans

 

This is to inform you that your request has been considered and I can
provide the following response:

 

The Request:

 

Please provide a spreadsheet in .xls format containing the following
information for each of the LOBO loans you held in the 2015/16 financial
year (please use a row for each loan and a column for each parameter
indicated below):

1. Internal reference number

2. Principal

3. Initial counterparty

4. Date loan was signed

5. Drawdown date

6. Maturity date

7. Option period (number of months)

8. Start date for teaser rate (if applicable) 9. Teaser interest rate (if
applicable - intended as the discount rate sometimes offered before the
initial rate) 10. Start date for initial rate 11. Initial interest rate
(intended as the rate set for the term of the loan until the first option
is called) 12. First option date 13. Has the option been exercised?

14. Most recent date when option was exercised (if applicable) 15.
Interest rate in 2015/16 16. Interest paid in 2015/16 17. Fair value in
March 2016 18. Interest rate in 2018/19 19. Interest paid in 2018/19 20.
Fair value in March 2019 21. Current counterparty 22. Name of treasury
management advisor when the loan was taken out 23. Name of broker who
arranged the loan 24. Fee paid to the broker for the loan

 

Please find attached an excel spreadsheet with a response for Part A

B. Please provide copies of:

 

The original LOBO loan contracts- Please find attached the relevant
contracts.  You will see that some of the information has been redacted. 
This is because it is either the personal data of an individual or is the
sort code and account numbers of bank accounts.  Where personal data has
been redacted this is in line with Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of
Information Act.  Whilst we appreciate that there is public interest in
the details of LOBO loans we do not believe that this extends to the
individuals who were involved with the process, both within and external
to the Local Authority.    We believe that it serves no wider public
interest to disclose the information.  . Therefore, this element within
the response falls in line with Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000

 

The data relating to account numbers and sort code numbers of the banks
included in the contract are also redacted.  Whilst we accept that there
is public interest in those commercial banks that have extended finance to
the Authority this has to be balanced against the public disclosure of
details of account numbers and sort code numbers, the disclosure of which
may prejudice the fiscal security of the entity concerned. There is public
interest in maintaining law and order and providing banking details may
lead to the increase in financial cyber fraud therefore section 31(1) is
engaged.

 

 

2. The invoices for the broker fees – Due to the retention period of the
Finance department within Powys County Council this information is no
longer held and therefore section 1 is engaged.

 

Exemptions Used:

 

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Powys County
Council, when refusing to provide such information (because the
information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

(a)  states that fact;

(b)  specifies the exemption in question and

(c)  states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption
applies.

 

Under Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act a public authority is
required to inform you

1 (a) whether the information requested is held by the public authority,
and

(d)(b) to have that information communicated if that is the case.

(e)In this case the information requested is not held.

 

Part of the information you requested is being withheld because it falls
under the exemption in section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act
2000.

Section 40 (2) applies to third party personal data. This would not be
released under the Freedom of Information Act unless there is strong
public interest to do so. This is because any release would breach the
Data Protection Principles as contained within the General Data Protection
Regulations.

Information released under the Freedom of Information is considered to be
released into the public domain, without caveat, not just to the
individual requesting the information. We believe that information
relating to identifiable individuals constitutes their personal data and
if released would contravene the first data protection principle.

The first principle of the General Data Protection Regulations states in
part that: “Personal data shall be processed “lawfully, fairly and in a
transparent manner in relation to data subjects” and, in particular, shall
not be processed unless at least one of the conditions in Article 6 is
met, and in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the
conditions in Article 9 is also met”. We have to assess whether the
information relates to living individuals, whether an individual can be
identified from the information requested and whether it is biographically
significant.

 

We are obliged to comply with the first principle where we are required to
‘handle people’s personal data only in ways they would reasonable expect’.
It is reasonable in these circumstances that the identity of the
individuals and the information relating to them would not be disclosed in
response to a Freedom of Information request.

Section 31: Law enforcement

(1) Information which is not exempt information by virtue of section 30 is
exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be
likely to, prejudice -

(a) The prevention or detection of crime

In accordance with Section 31 (1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 I am unable to provide you with the details you have requested.

 

Therefore, based on the considerations above the exemptions afforded under
Sections 1, 31 (1)(a) & 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 are
engaged and in accordance with Section 17 of the Freedom of Information
Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this element of your
request.

 

We regret the delay you have experienced with this request. We acknowledge
that Powys County Council has failed in its obligation under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000, to provide you with a response to your request
within the statutory timescale of 20 working days. Please accept our
apologies for this and for any inconvenience this may have caused.

 

 

 

We believe that this request is now complete and shall be closed
immediately. Should any further information be requested regarding this
topic, a separate request will need to be submitted.

 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Information Compliance Team

 

 

The supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give the
person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the
documents in a way that would infringe copyright.

 

You are free to use any information supplied for your own use, including
for non-commercial research purposes. The information may also be used for
the purposes of news reporting. However, any other type of re-use, for
example, by publishing the information or issuing copies to the public
will require the permission of the copyright owner.

 

The copyright of most of the information that we provide in response to
Freedom of Information Act requests will be owned by Powys County Council.
The copyright in other information may be owned by another person or
organisation, as indicated in the information itself.

 

For HMSO Guidance Notes on a range of copyright issues, see the Office of
Public Sector Information(OPSI) website.

[2]http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copy...

 

If you are dissatisfied with the service you have received in relation to
your request and wish to make a complaint, please contact Information
Compliance. Our complaints procedure is available on request or on our
website.

 

If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an appeal to
the Information Commissioner, who is the statutory regulator. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

 

Information Commissioner's Office

2nd floor

Churchill House

Churchill way

Cardiff

CF10 2HH

Tel: 029 2067 8400

Email: [3][email address]

[4]www.ico.org.uk

 

 

 

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References

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