Nottingham City Council's Active Travel Fund Tranche 3 bid

The request was successful.

Dear Department for Transport,

Would you please send over all of the documents that Nottingham City Council submitted as part of its Active Travel Fund Tranche 3 bid? The formal bid itself (submitted via an online survey as far as I know), as well as all of the supporting documentation and letters that you asked for.

The city council ought to have published it online - I believe it should appear here: https://www.nottinghaminsight.org.uk/Doc... - but they have not so far, and repeated requests to them to do so have gone unanswered, so I'm asking yourselves.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you need any clarification.

Yours faithfully,

Iain Lane

Department for Transport

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your request for information which
has been allocated reference number P0020252.

A response will be issued to you in due course.

Regards,

Department for Transport
FOI Advice Team

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

The information in this email may be confidential or otherwise protected
by law. If you received it in error, please let us know by return e-mail
and then delete it immediately, without printing or passing it on to
anybody else.
Incoming and outgoing e-mail messages are routinely monitored for
compliance with our policy on the use of electronic communications and for
other lawful purposes.

Walking Cycling, Department for Transport

2 Attachments

Dear Iain Lane,

Please find attached a response to your Freedom of Information request of
15^th September 2021

Yours sincerely

John Sweetman

[1][IMG] John Sweetman 
Cycling and Walking Stakeholder Engagement, Active Travel
[2]Follow us on twitter @transportgovuk 

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

The information in this email may be confidential or otherwise protected
by law. If you received it in error, please let us know by return e-mail
and then delete it immediately, without printing or passing it on to
anybody else.
Incoming and outgoing e-mail messages are routinely monitored for
compliance with our policy on the use of electronic communications and for
other lawful purposes.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...
2. https://twitter.com/transportgovuk

Dear Department for Transport,

Thanks for your reply.

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Department for Transport's handling of my FOI request 'Nottingham City Council's Active Travel Fund Tranche 3 bid'.

You said:

> This information is commercially sensitive as it contains sensitive business planning details of the authority, provided as part of the submission process. Disclosure of these details would impact their ability to compete in a commercial market.

> If third party sensitive technical, financial and operational details provided as part of procurement or grant process were routinely disclosed organisations would be reluctant to share information with the Department that they were not required to or would be reluctant to enter in to contact with government. This would make it harder for the Department to carry out its role.

The bid will contain details of proposed active travel schemes the authority is planning to implement under ATF3, along with their estimates as to the schemes' costs. If the term 'business planning' is taken to mean any work the authority undertakes in discharging its functions, applied to whole areas of activity rather than small parts of it, and any 'business planning' is witholdable under 43(2), then that will be a very serious chilling effect on FOI. Almost any function could fall under the headline of 'business planning'.

I would also like to challenge your classification of the entire bid as 'sensitive'. This is not supposed to be early stage proposals, where it may be sensitive that proposals are being worked up: you've asked authorities to submit bids they believe they can deliver on.

Please reassess your rejection of the request, and in particular please consider which parts of the information can be released and if your reassessment still maintains sensitivity/confidentiality is required then please redact those parts only, as sections of larger documents rather than withholding entire documents.

(For example: you requested a letter from the authority's leader: it's not likely this falls under the exemptions you're claiming so it should be released.)

You said:

> In addition the disclosure of certain details of grant evaluation process would prejudice the Department’s approach to any similar future grant competition.

I've not asked you to disclose anything about the evaluation process, just the submission itself, so I believe this sentence is not relevant to my request.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/n...

Yours faithfully,

Iain Lane

FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT, Department for Transport

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Lane

Thank you for your email requesting an internal review into the handling
of your recent request information.

I am writing to confirm that the Department will now undertake an internal
review of our decision letter dated 8 October 2021

We aim to respond to your complaint within 20 working days.

Kind regards

Information Rights Team

[1][IMG] Information Rights Team, Governance Division

Great Minster House
33 Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 4DR        
[2]Follow us on twitter @transportgovuk 

 

show quoted sections

Walking Cycling, Department for Transport

17 Attachments

Dear Iain Lane,

Further to your email of 10^th October I have attached the documents
requested in relation to Nottingham City Council’s 2021/22 active travel
capital funding bid.

Officials at Nottingham CC have asked me to point out that the draft
drawings that are attached are at a very early concept stage and are still
being worked on.

Officers at Nottingham have also said that they would be happy to discuss
the proposals with you. Please email me if you would like to discuss the
bid with Council officials and I will introduce the relevant parties.

Your sincerely

John Sweetman

[1][IMG] John Sweetman 
Cycling and Walking Stakeholder Engagement, Active Travel
[2]Follow us on twitter @transportgovuk 

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

The information in this email may be confidential or otherwise protected
by law. If you received it in error, please let us know by return e-mail
and then delete it immediately, without printing or passing it on to
anybody else.
Incoming and outgoing e-mail messages are routinely monitored for
compliance with our policy on the use of electronic communications and for
other lawful purposes.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...
2. https://twitter.com/transportgovuk