Transactions over £25,000 from November and request for machine readable format

The request was partially successful.

Dear Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust,

Thank you for publishing your spend data here: https://yeovilhospital.co.uk/about-us/co... . However, I notice that you haven't published any spending data since October and I notice that your spend data is in pdf format, which is not machine readable and so cannot be used for data analysis. Under 2.26 of Guidance for publishing spend (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...) publishers are to publish in a CSV file format rather than a PDF format.

We understand that due to the COVID-19 pandemic it may not have been a priority to publish your spending data. However, we strongly believe that the spending data is critical to understanding how Government functions and this data is vital for our work. We would be extremely grateful if you could update this information as soon as reasonably possible.

I'd like to make a request under the Freedom of Information act for all transactions over £25,000 from October to at most a month in arrears from the date at which you publish in response to this request.

Please provide the data in a machine readable format (preferably csv). As a minimum, please make sure to include the date, value and recipient of each transaction. Please also provide details on the procurement category of each transaction if you have it.

Your team may also be interested in the guidance on producing spending data:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio.... This letter makes it clear that this guidance applies to the NHS: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy....

For the avoidance of doubt, I am making this request under the Freedom of Information Act. I await your response within 20 working days.

Yours Faithfully,

Zsofia Molnar

Spend Network

Dear Sir or Madam,

On 27th January, I sent you a FOI request for your expenditure over £25,000 from November to present in a machine readable format. I have not received any reply since than.

However, the guidance for publishing spend data for government departments states:
2.10 Spend is to be published one month in arrears, ie by the last working day of the month following the month to which the data relates. If the data is available before the end of the month, it should be published as soon as the department has cleared it for release. This data is to be published in individual monthly files.
2.11 You should not hold up the publication of your data where you have unresolved individual queries. You should publish the cleared data within the publication timescales, and amend the data at a later date if necessary. See section 2.5 for further detail on applying redactions to the data.

Please see here for more details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio.... This letter makes it clear that this guidance applies to the NHS: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy....

This means that the data requested should already be published. For this reason, I would like to request an Internal Review of the initial response to my Freedom of Information request.

Please also take note of this decision notice from the ICO on the use of Section 22 of the FOI Act in these circumstances: https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...

I await your response within 20 working days.

Yours Faithfully,

Zsofia Molnar

Spend Network

3 Attachments

Dear Mr Zsofia

 

Apologies for this oversight – we will endeavour to rectify this.

 

In the meantime, please find attached the information for December 22 –
January 23.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Louise Coppin

Head of Information Governance/Data Protection Officer

 

From: Freedom Of Information <[1][email address]>
Sent: 27 January 2023 12:12
To: FOI <[2][email address]>
Subject: FW: Freedom of Information request - Transactions over £25,000
from November and request for machine readable format

 

 

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

From: Spend Network
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2023 11:42:49 AM (UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh,
Lisbon, London
To: Freedom Of Information
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Transactions over £25,000 from
November and request for machine readable format

Dear Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust,

Thank you for publishing your spend data here:
[3]https://yeovilhospital.co.uk/about-us/co...
. However, I notice that you haven't published any spending data since
October and I notice that your spend data is in pdf format, which is not
machine readable and so cannot be used for data analysis. Under 2.26 of
Guidance for publishing spend
([4]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...)
publishers are to publish in a CSV file format rather than a PDF format.

We understand that due to the COVID-19 pandemic it may not have been a
priority to publish your spending data. However, we strongly believe that
the spending data is critical to understanding how Government functions
and this data is vital for our work. We would be extremely grateful if you
could update this information as soon as reasonably possible.

I'd like to make a request under the Freedom of Information act for all
transactions over £25,000 from October to at most a month in arrears from
the date at which you publish in response to this request.

Please provide the data in a machine readable format (preferably csv). As
a minimum, please make sure to include the date, value and recipient of
each transaction. Please also provide details on the procurement category
of each transaction if you have it.

Your team may also be interested in the guidance on producing spending
data:
[5]https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio....
This letter makes it clear that this guidance applies to the NHS:
[6]https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy....

For the avoidance of doubt, I am making this request under the Freedom of
Information Act. I await your response within 20 working days.

Yours Faithfully,

Zsofia Molnar

Spend Network

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[7][FOI #942865 email]

Is [8][Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust request email] the wrong address for Freedom of Information requests
to Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust? If so, please contact us
using this form:
[9]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/change_re...

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on
the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
[10]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/offi...

For more detailed guidance on safely disclosing information, read the
latest advice from the ICO:
[11]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/ico-...
[12]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/ico-...

Please note that in some cases publication of requests and responses will
be delayed.

If you find this service useful as an FOI officer, please ask your web
manager to link to us from your organisation's FOI page.

show quoted sections

Dear Louise Coppin,

Thank you very much for your kind reply and for your cooperation. Would it be possible that you send the data between March and October in the same way in an attachment and in the same format (csv). I have realized that the data is on the website is just in PDF.

Thank you very much in advance!

Yours sincerely,
Zsofia Molnar
Spend Network