Priority star system for housing

The request was successful.

Dear Southwark Borough Council,

This request concerns the priority star system for housing allocations.

Can I please have:

1) A breakdown of your social housing waiting list by nationality of household eg. (5000 British etc.)

2) The amount of households for each type of priority star (eg. 1500 homelessness star)

3) A breakdown of question 2 by nationality (eg. homelessness star and British = 300)

Note: if nationality is not possible then ethnicity could be substituted.

Yours faithfully,

Becca Martin

Barfield, Catherine, Southwark Borough Council

Dear Sir / Madam

Thank you for submitting a Freedom of Information request.

 

Your request is being dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
and you will receive a response within 20 working days of the date that we
received your request.

 

In the meantime, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to
contact me.

Regards

 

 

Catherine Barfield

Specialist Services Manager (Customer Resolution)

 

London Borough of Southwark

PO BOX 64529

London

SE1P 5LX 

Telephone: 0207 5250041

[1][email address]

Please note: I do not work on a Friday

 

The email you received and any files transmitted with it are confidential,
may be covered by legal and/or professional privilege and are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this in error please notify us immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient of the email or the person responsible for
delivering it to them you may not copy it, forward it or otherwise use it
for any purpose or disclose its contents to any other person. To do so may
be unlawful. Where opinions are expressed in the email they are not
necessarily those of Southwark Council and Southwark Council is not
responsible for any changes made to the message after it has been sent.

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Morille, Pauline, Southwark Borough Council

4 Attachments

Dear Ms Martin

 

RE: Your information request reference: 842919

 

Please find attached our response to your request for information in which
you requested:

 

This request concerns the priority star system for housing allocations.

 

Can I please have:

 

1) A breakdown of your social housing waiting list by nationality of
household eg. (5000 British etc.)

 

2) The amount of households for each type of priority star (eg. 1500
homelessness star)

 

3) A breakdown of question 2 by nationality (eg. homelessness star and
British = 300)

 

Note: if nationality is not possible then ethnicity could be substituted.

 

 

Pauline Morille

Information Officer

Telephone: 020 7525 1758

Email: [1][email address] Southwark Council  || 
Modernise  ||  Housing and Modernisation 2nd Floor, Hub 2, PO BOX 64529,
London SE1P 5LX

Please note: I do not work on Thursday’s and Friday’s.

 

 

The email you received and any files transmitted with it are confidential,
may be covered by legal and/or professional privilege and are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this in error please notify us immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient of the email or the person responsible for
delivering it to them you may not copy it, forward it or otherwise use it
for any purpose or disclose its contents to any other person. To do so may
be unlawful. Where opinions are expressed in the email they are not
necessarily those of Southwark Council and Southwark Council is not
responsible for any changes made to the message after it has been sent.

References

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1. mailto:[email address]

Dear Southwark Borough Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Southwark Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Priority star system for housing'.

The answers to my Q2 and Q3 seem incompatible. You're answer to Q2 says there are about 3000 stars. But then you're answer to Q3, which asks for stars by ethnicity, seems to say there are 11000 stars. Can you please either explain this discrepancy or correct the data.

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 faithfully,

Becca Martin

Morille, Pauline, Southwark Borough Council

Dear Ms Martin

 

The Council has been processing your information request, however, we have
not yet been able to complete our response to your query. Unfortunately,
with the holiday period coming up we do not anticipate being able to
respond before the new year.

 

I apologise for this delay and any inconvenience it may cause and will
forward you our response as soon as possible.

 

 

 

Kind regards

Pauline Morille

Information Officer

Telephone: 020 7525 1758

Email: [1][email address] Southwark Council  || 
Modernise  ||  Housing and Modernisation 2nd Floor, Hub 2, PO BOX 64529,
London SE1P 5LX

Please note: I do not work on Thursday’s and Friday’s.

 

 

The email you received and any files transmitted with it are confidential,
may be covered by legal and/or professional privilege and are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this in error please notify us immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient of the email or the person responsible for
delivering it to them you may not copy it, forward it or otherwise use it
for any purpose or disclose its contents to any other person. To do so may
be unlawful. Where opinions are expressed in the email they are not
necessarily those of Southwark Council and Southwark Council is not
responsible for any changes made to the message after it has been sent.

References

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1. mailto:[email address]

Morille, Pauline, Southwark Borough Council

Dear Ms Martin,

 

Please accept my sincere apologies,the email below was sent to you by
mistake, please ignore.

 

 

Kind regards

Pauline Morille

Information Officer

Telephone: 020 7525 1758

Email: [1][email address] Southwark Council  || 
Modernise  ||  Housing and Modernisation 2nd Floor, Hub 2, PO BOX 64529,
London SE1P 5LX

Please note: I do not work on Thursday’s and Friday’s.

 

 

From: Morille, Pauline
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2017 5:04 PM
To: '[FOI #437076 email]'
Subject: Freedom of information request reference: 842919

 

Dear Ms Martin

 

The Council has been processing your information request, however, we have
not yet been able to complete our response to your query. Unfortunately,
with the holiday period coming up we do not anticipate being able to
respond before the new year.

 

I apologise for this delay and any inconvenience it may cause and will
forward you our response as soon as possible.

 

 

 

Kind regards

Pauline Morille

Information Officer

Telephone: 020 7525 1758

Email: [2][email address] Southwark Council  || 
Modernise  ||  Housing and Modernisation 2nd Floor, Hub 2, PO BOX 64529,
London SE1P 5LX

Please note: I do not work on Thursday’s and Friday’s.

 

 

The email you received and any files transmitted with it are confidential,
may be covered by legal and/or professional privilege and are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this in error please notify us immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient of the email or the person responsible for
delivering it to them you may not copy it, forward it or otherwise use it
for any purpose or disclose its contents to any other person. To do so may
be unlawful. Where opinions are expressed in the email they are not
necessarily those of Southwark Council and Southwark Council is not
responsible for any changes made to the message after it has been sent.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[email address]

Dear Morille, Pauline,

My internal review is long overdue. If I do not receive a response by the end of the week I will report your lack of response to the ICO.

Yours sincerely,

Becca Martin

Morille, Pauline, Southwark Borough Council

Dear Ms Martin

Thank you for your email.

I do not deal with internal reviews. I have forwarded your email to the appropriate person.

Kind regards
Pauline Morille
Information Officer
Telephone: 020 7525 1758
Email: [email address] Southwark Council || Modernise || Housing and Modernisation 2nd Floor, Hub 2, PO BOX 64529, London SE1P 5LX
Please note: I do not work on Thursday’s and Friday’s.

show quoted sections

Barfield, Catherine, Southwark Borough Council

Dear Ms Martin
Thank you for your email and please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your internal review.

I am currently awaiting further information from the Housing Solutions Service who provided the original information.

I hope to respond before the end of the week.

Once again please accept my apologies.
Regards

Catherine Barfield
Specialist Services Manager (Customer Resolution)

London Borough of Southwark
PO BOX 64529
London
SE1P 5LX
Telephone: 0207 5250041
[email address]
Please note: I do not work on a Friday

show quoted sections

Barfield, Catherine, Southwark Borough Council

Dear Ms Martin

Firstly I would like to apologise for the delay in providing you with a
response. You originally submitted a request for information on the 9
October 2017, and Pauline Morille responded on the 31 October 2017.

The original request was as follows:

This request concerns the priority star system for housing allocations.
Can I please have:

1) A breakdown of your social housing waiting list by nationality of
household eg. (5000 British

etc.)

2) The amount of households for each type of priority star (eg. 1500
homelessness star)

3) A breakdown of question 2 by nationality (eg. homelessness star and
British = 300)

Note: if nationality is not possible then ethnicity could be substituted.

 

Our Response:

Ms Morille responded by providing individual spreadsheets in response to
each of the three questions.

 

Your review request:

You then requested an internal review in an email dated the 20 November 
2017. You stated in your email:

I am writing to request an internal review of Southwark Borough Council's
handling of my FOI request 'Priority star system for housing'.

The answers to my Q2 and Q3 seem incompatible. You're answer to Q2 says
there are about 3000 stars. But then you're answer to Q3, which asks for
stars by ethnicity, seems to say there are 11000 stars. Can you please
either explain this discrepancy or correct the data.

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

 

My Response:

I have investigated the issues raised in your email and can respond as
follows. The original spreadsheet provided by the service in response to
Q3 included the number of stars under each heading (for example Black
Caribbean - homeless star 12). The number of stars across all the headings
totalled 3177.

 

However, the spreadsheet was checked before release, and all figures under
10 were replaced with the <10 symbol. This is done in order to protect
personal data. The council maintains that to provide a more detailed
breakdown would involve the release of figures which are sufficiently
small such that the release of the precise figure may enable an
individual/individuals to be identified. In this case, less than 10.

 

Our position is that just because the data itself is “anonymised” and does
not reveal the names of any individuals concerned, this does not mean
that the risk of individuals being identified is any less great. If a
requester already possesses other information (which we would have no way
of knowing if they do or not) they may be able to use the combined
information to significantly narrow down their search. Therefore the
information has been withheld pursuant to section 40 of the Freedom of
Information Act. Section 40 is an absolute exemption and doesn’t require
consideration of the public interest test.

 

I am sorry that this was not explained to you in more detail in the
original response.

I hope this response is satisfactory however if you are not content with
the outcome of your appeal or would like to discuss the matter further
please contact me by email at [2][email address].

You may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. You
should contact him within 2 months of the outcome of your internal appeal.

Further information on the Freedom of Information Act and the
Environmental Information Regulations is available through the Information
Commissioner at the: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, Telephone: 01625 545 700,
Internet: [3]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

 

Regards

 

 

Catherine Barfield

Specialist Services Manager (Customer Resolution)

 

London Borough of Southwark

PO BOX 64529

London

SE1P 5LX 

Telephone: 0207 5250041

[4][email address]

Please note: I do not work on a Friday

 

The email you received and any files transmitted with it are confidential,
may be covered by legal and/or professional privilege and are intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this in error please notify us immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient of the email or the person responsible for
delivering it to them you may not copy it, forward it or otherwise use it
for any purpose or disclose its contents to any other person. To do so may
be unlawful. Where opinions are expressed in the email they are not
necessarily those of Southwark Council and Southwark Council is not
responsible for any changes made to the message after it has been sent.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/
4. mailto:[email address]