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Information Rights Team
Post Office Limited
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
London EC2Y 9AQ
Your reference:
Our reference: FOI2021/00620
Ash Hill
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
26 July 2021
-
Dear
Ash Hill,
Freedom of Information Request – FOI2021/00620
I am writing in response to your email received by Post Office Limited (“
Post Office”)
on 12 July, which I am dealing with under the terms of the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 (“
FOIA”).
In your email you have requested the following information:
I would be grateful if you could provide me with the following information under
current Freedom of Information legislation:
Any usage manuals, training guides or materials on the Horizon Point-of-Sale system
or any electronic point-of-sale systems used by the Post Office.
I confirm that Post Office holds information responsive to your request. However, it is
estimated that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the “appropriate
costs limit” and Post Office is not obliged to process your request in these
circumstances by virtue of section 12 of FOIA. Please therefore treat this letter as a
refusal notice. I set out our reasons for this decision in further detail below.
The “appropriate cost limit” for Post Office is £450.
1 When estimating costs for the
purpose of this limit, the rate of £25 per person per hour is used
2 and so £450
represents the cost of one person at Post Office carrying out 18 hours of work.
However, the 18 hours of work can only relate to carrying out the following “permitted
activities” in complying with the request:
3
(i) determining whether the information is held;
(ii) locating the information, or a document containing it;
(iii) retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
(iv) extracting the information from a document containing it.
We estimate that to search through our records in order to determine whether the
information is held, locate the information, or documents containing it, and extract the
requested information from our records given the volume of documents involved
would take significantly longer than 18 hours. In response to your request, we
conducted some preliminary searches and enquiries. From this, we understand that
the information you have requested would be contained in records that cover a
number of topics. Bearing this in mind, our preliminary searches relating solely to the
Horizon Online Help returned over 19,000 files. Each of these files would need to be
reviewed and any relevant information extracted. Post Office would clearly be unable
to do so within 18 hours.
1 See regulation 3(3) of the Fees Regulations.
2 See regulation 4(4) of the Fees Regulation.
3 See regulation 4 of the Fees Regulations.
Public
As Post Office estimates that the “appropriate costs limit” would be exceeded, we are
not obliged to process your request further in accordance with section 12 of FOIA.
In accordance with our duty under section 16 of FOIA to provide reasonable advice
and assistance, we have considered whether it would be possible to narrow your
request in order to bring it within the costs limit. For example, we may be able to
provide the user guide for the Self Service Kiosks (SSK’) within the 18 hours, however
due to the nature of the on-line Horizon guide and how it is structured this would
again fall within the cost limit if you were to limit your request to the Horizon system
only.
Notwithstanding that, should you choose to submit a refined request, Post Office will
treat this as a new request for information and consider it in accordance with FOIA, in-
cluding whether any exemptions apply.
If you have any queries about this response, please contact me. Do remember to
quote the reference number above in any future communications.
I am sorry I could not provide you with the information you requested on this
occasion, however if you are dissatisfied with the handling of this response, you do
have a right to request an internal review. You can do this by writing to the address
below stating your reasons for your internal review request.
Information Rights Team
Post Office Limited
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
London EC2Y 9AQ
xxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx
If, having requested an internal review by Post Office, you are still not satisfied with
our response you also have a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
https://ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely,
Jackie Lawrence
Information Rights Team
xxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx
http://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/secure-corporate/about-us/access-to-information/
Post Office Limited is committed to protecting your privacy, information about
how we do this can be found on our website at www.postoffice.co.uk/privacy
