Pauline Morille
Information Officer
Customer Resolution Team
Housing and Modernisation
Jo Staines
xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
request-601123-
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Date: 02 October 2019
Ref: 1113765
Dear Sir/Madam
Re Your request for information
Thank you for your request for information, which we received on the 3 September 2019. This
information is being provided as a statutory obligation under the Freedom of Information Act
2000.
Your request
This request is related to the Southwark housing waiting list.
Q1) Please provide for the last 5 years:
a) the number of households households refused Band 1 for statutory overcrowding due to
having caused their overcrowding by a deliberate act
b) a breakdown of the answer to Q1a by ethnicity
c) a breakdown of the answer to Q1a by nationality
d) a breakdown of the answer to Q1a by country of birth
e) how many of the households in answer to Q1a had lived in Southwark for more than
5years.at the time of the households application
f) how many of the households in answer to Q1a had qualified for the housing waiting list due
to the employment criteria (which is working in Southwark for more than 16 hours for 9 put of
the last 12 months)
Q2) Please provide for the last 5 years:
a) the number of households placed in Band 4 for deliberately worsening circumstances by
causing their own overcrowding
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b) a breakdown of the answer to Q2a by ethnicity
c) a breakdown of the answer to Q2a by nationality
d) a breakdown of the answer to Q2a by country of birth
e) how many of the households in answer to Q2a had lived in Southwark for more than 5
years
f) how many of the households in answer to Q2a had qualified for the housing waiting list due
to the employment criteria (which is working in Southwark for more than 16 hours for 9 put of
the last 12 months)
Q3)
a) the number of households currently in Band 1 for satisfying the criteria of being "statutorily
overcrowded and not by a deliberate act"
b) a breakdown of the answer to Q3a by ethnicity
c) a breakdown of the answer to Q3a by nationality
d) a breakdown of the answer to Q3a by country of birth
e) how many of the households in answer to Q3a had lived in Southwark for more than 5
years.
f) how many of the households in answer to Q3a had qualified for the housing waiting list due
to the employment criteria (which is working in Southwark for more than 16 hours for 9 put of
the last 12 months)
Q4)
a) the number of households currently in Band 3 for satisfying the criteria of being
'overcrowded but not statutorily overcrowded'
b) a breakdown of the answer to Q4a by ethnicity
c) a breakdown of the answer to Q4a by nationality
d) a breakdown of the answer to Q4a by country of birth
e) how many of the households in answer to Q4a had lived in Southwark for more than 5
years.
f) how many of the households in answer to Q4a had qualified for the housing waiting list due
to the employment criteria (which is working in Southwark for more than 16 hours for 9 put of
the last 12 months)
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Our response
Having considered your request in relation to this query we have estimated that it will cost
more than the appropriate limit to consider your request as it is currently worded. Your
request would breach the appropriate limit to answer as we do not specifically record
deliberately worsened circumstances and refusal of stat OC band 1 as a data item for
reporting purposes.
Therefore in order to provide a response to this request our office will have to interrogate the
files on our system manually to establish if a decision on stat OC has been made.
The request also asks for data for the last 5 years. Our system can only identify specific data
input items (i.e. awarding priority) and therefore if there has been a subsequent change in
band this will not reflect the reason i.e. band demotion. Therefore with specific data requests
we can only give a snapshot in time of the data request.
We do not hold this information as statistical data and in order to collate this we would need to
manually interrogate over 10,000 files on our housing register at a minimum of five minutes
per file.
The appropriate limit is specified in regulations and for local government is set at £450. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether we
hold the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Consequently, we
are not obliged by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to respond to your request (see
section 12(1)).
We are conscious of our duty to advise and assist under section 16 of the Freedom of
Information Act and should you wish to narrow the scope of your request, for example by
omitting questions 1 and , we would be happy to consider this as a fresh request.
However, I cannot guarantee that section 12 or any other exemption will not apply to any new
request you may wish to make.
I am refusing your request under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
because it would take more than 18 hours to gather all the information. The regulations
provides that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if it
estimates that meeting the request would exceed the appropriate cost limit. The appropriate
limited for non-Central Government public authorities is currently set at £450 and this
effectively equates to a time limit of 18 staff hours.
Please note that under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations
2003 Southwark Council ask not to receive unsolicited marketing communications.
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to
make an appeal for a review of our decision, you should contact us at
xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx, quoting the reference number above.
If you are not content with the outcome of your appeal you may apply directly to the
Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot
make a decision unless you have first exhausted our internal appeal procedure and you
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should contact her within 2 months of the outcome of your internal appeal. Further information
on the Freedom of Information Act is available through the Information Commissioner at
www.ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely
Pauline Morille
Information Officer
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