Peter de Figueiredo ‘historic buildings adviser’. Representations in support of demolishing historic buildings?

Waiting for an internal review by Liverpool City Council of their handling of this request.

Dear Liverpool City Council,

To ask Liverpool City Council Planning Department
1) in how many planning applications over the last ten years Peter de Figueiredo has made representations?
2) in how many applications Peter de Figueiredo has been a consultant for the applicant?
3) in how many applications heritage expert Peter de Figueiredo has written a report for an applicant in favour of demolition of an historic building?
4) in how many applications Peter de Figueiredo has written a report for an applicant in favour of retaining an historic building?
5) in relation to how many applications Peter de Figueiredo has written personal representations in favour of demolition of an historic building?
6) in relation to how many applications Peter de Figueiredo has written personal representations in favour of retaining an historic building?

Yours sincerely,

Kiron Reid

20 West Albert Road
Liverpool
L17

Regeneration and Employment, Liverpool City Council

Information request
Our reference: 651673

show quoted sections

Information Requests, Liverpool City Council

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Reid

 

Please see attached our response to your information request as submitted
to Liverpool City Council.  

 

Regards

 

Information Team

 

Information Requests

Liverpool City Council

[1][email address]

[2]LCC auto signature (2)

 

 

 

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.liverpool.gov.uk/

Dear Liverpool City Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews. My apologies that I am not responding directly but the very useful Whatdotheyknow system unhelpfully limits direct replies to the appropriate contact.

I am writing to request an internal review of Liverpool City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Peter de Figueiredo ‘historic buildings adviser’. Representations in support of demolishing historic buildings?'.
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews. Apologies also for my delay in replying.

The request has been refused on the following grounds:
"the City Council’s Planning systems do not allow for any form of automated interrogation for the information to which your request relates." ..
"with regard to all elements of your request, the time taken to comply would substantially exceed the 18 hour maximum threshold prescribed under Section 12 Freedom of Information Act 2000. We are therefore applying an Exemption under the provisions of Section 12 Freedom of Information Act to all elements of your request."

I contest this reasoning for refusal by the Council on the following grounds.
i) This is a failure of your system and inadequacy of retrieval processes, not a problem caused by my request.
ii). You have made no attempt to try and fulfil the request at all, simply decided without trying that it is unreasonable.
iii). The Council have not made any effort to provide any of the information requested. Presumably you could easily and quickly do a manual or computer search for a lesser period. I appreciate that you have been very reasonable in your estimate regarding checking all records for a year: "your request would require all Planning records for the period to be examined. With in excess of 2,000 applications per year and allowing 1 minute to check each casefile would require 33 hours per year". The estimate of one minute per file seems reasonable but surely officers would not need to look at every file as it would be obvious that many applications were not the type to which my request would relate. Therefore I suggest that it could be more time effective to do a search that provides the information for a one year period, or two years or three years. That could be a reasonable way to fulfil the request - by providing some but not all of the information requested.
iv). I doubt that you do not have computerised records with the information - there must be searchable computer files of the Planning Department that contain the information, or at least recent files must exist. Unless the Council only holds Planning information on a database which is inadequately searchable?

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

Yours sincerely,

Kiron Reid