Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
Central Freedom of Information Team
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xxx.xx
Our reference: FoI 4419
Date: 14 December 2016
Dear Mr Williams
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request received on 21 November
2016. You asked:
Please disclose all operational guidance issued to Work Coaches in
JobCentre Plus concerning working with Universal Credit claimants- I
understand that this information is contained in the "Knowledge Hub".
DWP Response
I can confirm that we hold information falling within the description specified in
your request. However, we estimate that the cost of complying with your
request would
exceed the appropriate limit for central Government, set by
regulations at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person
spending 3½ working days in determining whether the Department holds the
information, and locating, retrieving and extracting it.
Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act the Department is not
therefore obliged to comply with your request and we will not be processing it
further.
Under section 16 of the Act we should assist the requester in helping narrow
their request so that it may fall beneath the cost limit.
The issue with your request is that it would cover every piece of guidance
ever issued to Work Coaches since UC first went into payment as well as us
having to identify all legacy guidance which remains relevant to UC claimants
today.
Both of these issues would breach costs in their own right. For the first issue
we would have to go through non-central records to identify every piece of
guidance ever issued, even if it has now been withdrawn and replaced, to
collate for release. For the second we would have to go through all guidance
in place which is often arranged by topic and questions rather than benefit
specific to identify everything that could be relevant to UC Work Coaches to
extract and collate.
In order to come within costs you might like to narrow your request by
specifying which areas of information you are interested in, or limiting the date
range for when guidance was issued, as well as limiting scope to just UC
specific items while accepting that other non-benefit specific guidance would
be missed by doing this.
However I can tell you that we have recently published the full service
guidance for UC in the House of Commons which may hold the information
you seek. Please see link below:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/business-
papers/commons/deposited-papers/?fd=2016-10-01&td=2016-12-
12&search_term=Department+for+Work+and+Pensions&itemId=119004#togg
le-778
If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting the
reference number above.
Yours sincerely,
DWP Central FoI Team
Your right to complain under the Freedom of Information Act
If you are not happy with this response you may request an internal review by e-mailing
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xxx.xx or by writing to: DWP, Central FoI Team,
Caxton House, Tothill Street, SW1H 9NA. Any review request should be submitted within two
months of the date of this letter.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review you may apply directly to the
Information Commissioner’s Office for a decision. Generally the Commissioner cannot make a
decision unless you have exhausted our own complaints procedure. The Information
Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF
www.ico.org.uk/Global/contact_us or telephone 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545745