Dear Eric,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST - REF NO - 1366.

I acknowledge your request for information received on 8^th February
2009.

Your request is being considered and you will receive the information
requested within the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by
the Freedom of Information Act 2000, subject to the information not being
exempt or containing a reference to a third party.

If appropriate, the information may be provided in paper copy, normal font
size. If you require alternative formats, e.g. language, audio, large
print, etc. then please let me know.

For your information, the Act defines a number of exemptions which may
prevent release of the information you have requested. There will be an
assessment and if any of the exemption categories apply then the
information will not be released. You will be informed if this is the
case, including your rights of appeal.

If the information you request contains reference to a third party then
they may be consulted prior to a decision being taken on whether or not to
release the information to you. You will be informed if this is the case.

There may a fee payable for this information. This will be considered and
you will be informed if a fee is payable. In this event the fee must be
paid before the information is processed and released. The 20 working day
time limit for responses is suspended until receipt of the payment.

Yours sincerely

Natalie

Natalie Morgan

Corporate Customer Care Officer

Policy and Communications Team

Chief Executive's Group

London Borough of Sutton

Civic Offices

St Nicholas Way, Sutton SM1 1EA

Tel: 020 8770 6380

FAX: 020 8770 5404

www.sutton.gov.uk

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Dear Mr, Blair

Thank you for email of 8 February which ahs been dealt with under the
terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please accept our apologies
for the delay in replying.

Points 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 of your request have been refused under section
43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as it has been considered to
be commercially sensitive information.

The London Borough of Sutton has concluded that it would not be in the
public interest to disclose the information because disclosure would be
likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the London Borough of
Sutton by affecting adversely its bargaining position during contractual
negotiations which would result in the less effective use of public money.
Disclosure would also make it more difficult for individuals to conduct
commercial transactions with the London Borough of Sutton without fear of
suffering commercially as a result.

The remainder of your request applies to information that we do not hold.

Yours sincerely

Andy Saulter

Andy Saulter , Strategic Procurement Manager , London Borough of Sutton,
Civic Offices, St Nicholas Way, Sutton, Surrey. SM1 1EA

Tel.: +44 (020 8770 5253), FAX:+44 (020 8770 5221,
web site: [1]www.sutton.gov.uk

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Dear Mr. Blair - I attach copy of response sent last week. I apologise
if this did not reach you. - Andrew Saulter

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Dear Mr Blair

I have reviewed your request and taken advice from our Legal Services
department.

We have initially declined to respond to your request on the grounds of
commercial sensitivity under section 43 (2). You have requested an
internal appeal of this decision as you say other authorities have
responded to your question.

I am afraid I do not uphold your appeal, and indeed reject your request
for the reason that we do not believe you have complied with Section 8 of
the Act which requires requestors to provide their name and address. We
therefore do not consider that you have made a valid request and therefore
your request is rejected unless you can provide proof of your name and
address.

If you remain unhappy we suggest you approach the Information
Commissioner's Office for guidance.

Thank you

FOI Officer

London Borough of Sutton

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Dear Mr Blair

You have not provided us with a personal email address, the email
address you use is for a website. Therefore we do not consider you have
complied with Section 8 of the Act.

If you remain dissatisfied with our response to your request may I
respectfully suggest you bring this to the attention of the Information
Commissioner. We will of course cooperate with any investigation he
undertakes.
FOI Officer

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Dear Mr Blair

We have provided you with our response.

If you remain unhappy please refer to the Information Commissioner's
Office (www.ico.gov.uk) We will comply with any investigation he may
undertake.

Sarah Milne
Corporate Customer Care Manager
Chief Executive's Group
London Borough of Sutton

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Dear Eric Blair,

I am writing to inform you we have now re-visited your request and after
discussing this with our legal services team have decided to re-consider
your request for an internal review. This refers to our original response
from Andrew Saulter whereby exemption 43 (2) under the FOI Act 2000 was
used in refusing to supply part of the information you requested. We
accept responsibility for wrongly applying section 8 of FOI Act as a
reason for refusing your request for an appeal. The key officer involved
in answering your request has been away from the office due to unavoidable
absence; however we now have other officers within our Transformation and
Procurement team assisting us in our investigation.

You will receive a revised response to our internal review in due course.

Yours Sincerely

Natalie

Natalie Morgan

Corporate Customer Care Officer

Policy and Communications Team

Chief Executive's Group

London Borough of Sutton

Civic Offices

St Nicholas Way, Sutton SM1 1EA

Tel: 020 8770 6380

FAX: 020 8770 5404

www.sutton.gov.uk

This email and the information it contains are confidential and intended
solely for

the exclusive use of the individual to whom it is addressed. If you are
not the intended

recipient, this email should not be copied, forwarded, or printed for any
purpose, or

the contents disclosed to any other person. If you have received this
email in error,

please notify the London Borough of Sutton immediately on +44 (020) 8770
5000 or

email [email address] and then delete the email.

Although the London Borough of Sutton operates anti-virus programmes, it
does not

accept any responsibility for any damage whatsoever that is caused by
viruses being

passed.

This message has been scanned for malware.

<<Info - Vendor Neutral access agreement.pdf>>

Dear Mr Blair

I refer to your request for an internal appeal to our partial refusal to
respond to your request, made via the Whatdotheyknow website for details
of contracts and pay scales relating to agency workers. As Senior Legal
Assistant with responsibility for providing guidance to London Borough of
Sutton with regard to compliance with the FOIA I conducted a thorough
review of our handling of your original request. I apologise for the
delay in providing this response.

Background

On 8 February you sent a request, via the Whatdotheyknow website to a
number of local authorities, requesting a variety of information relating
to the provision of temporary/agency staff, including copies of contracts
with providers, pay scales for temporary social care staff and copies of
agreements with Managed Service Providers. You also asked whether this
information had been requested as part of a previous FIO request.

Your request was acknowledged on Monday 9 February and given reference
1366.

This information had not been requested previously, and our Procurement
were concerned that publicising this may undermine future negotiations
with providers. A number of other authorities also had similar concerns,
particularly as the responses would be published on a public website. On
12 March Andrew Saulter, Strategic Procurement Manager, therefore issued a
refusal notice stating that points 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 were refused under
section 43(2) applying to commercially sensitive information. The notice
explained that even after applying the "public interest test" it was still
felt that it would not be in the public interest to disclose information
which may prejudice the commercial interests of the authority. The
remainder of the information requested was refused as it is not
information we held.

On 10 March you had requested an internal review of our handling of your
request, as it was overdue (deadline was 9 March), but this review was not
taken forward as a response was issued on 12 March. Your email also
included examples of responses from other authorities.

On 16 March, notwithstanding our response, you asked when you would
receive a response to your request for an internal review. Andrew Saulter
assumed that this meant you had not seen that we had in fact responded to
your request, and resent this to you. However, at this point we were
concerned to ensure we had acted fairly and reviewed the way in which
other authorities had responded to the same request.

It appeared that a handful of authorities had responded in full to your
request, a larger number had partially responded and the remainder either
refused or did not respond.

The Customer Care Manager had a number of informal conversations with
colleagues in other boroughs, and was advised by London Borough of Brent
that they had a reasonable suspicion the request had been made under a
pseudonym which is contrary to Section 14 of FOIA, and your request for an
appeal was rejected on this basis on 7 April.

On 9 April you asked why we were questioning your identity as you believed
that you had complied with the Act. We responded that we believed that by
submitting your request via the Whatdotheyknow website rather than a
personal email address, you had not provided an address as required by the
legislation. You asked whether this applied to requests via other internet
service providers. At this point we suggested that if you were unhappy
with our response you should refer to the Office of the Information
Commissioner.

Appeal process

During this period we were aware of an increasing number of requests
leading to internal appeals, and we took the opportunity to review our
internal appeals process, taking guidance from the ICO. As a result of
this review, we produced guidance for officers, and also reviewed the
authority's handling of FOI requests which had been refused in full or in
part, to ensure the appeal process was working effectively.

Having reviewed our handling of your request, we felt that there was room
for improvement in terms of the timescale, and also it was felt that
although the concerns around commercial sensitivity remained, there was
more information that we could make proactively available.

Outcome of appeal

We therefore issued you with an update on 23 June, explaining that we were
in the process of reviewing your request, and our response is as follows.

We partially uphold your appeal, as we agree we were wrong to advise that
requests made through the Whatdotheyknow website do not comply with the
legislation's requirement that requestors provide an address for
correspondence. We admit that this position was not logical bearing in
mind that we had already responded to a number of requests previously via
the website. We apologise for this misunderstanding.

In respect of the information you have requested, under point 1.1 London
Borough of Sutton utilises the Comensura Neutral Vendor Contract for the
management of Agency Staff via an Access Agreement in to the contract
managed by London Borough of Waltham Forest. I believe you already hold
the contract details between Waltham Forest and Commensura, and under the
FOIA we are not obliged to provide information a requestor already holds
or which is available by other means. However to clarify, Sutton's terms
and conditions would be the same as we operate via this agreement. I
attach a copy of the Access Agreement referred to above, for your
information.

In relation to point 1.2 our hourly pay scales for the categories of staff
requested and managed through the Comensura service are as follows:

Newly qualified social workers - £15 per hour. Qualified social workers -
£17 per hour, rising to £23 per hour for approved specialist workers.

Our Social Care agency staff for unqualified social care workers range
from £6.25 for a basic care worker through a range of rates commensurate
with the duties/responsibility levels to £16.50 for an unqualified
assistant care manager.

With regard to point 1.3 we do not hold any agreements directly with
temporary agency staff vendors, as this is managed on our behalf by
Comensura.

I trust this information is helpful and I apologise once again for not
providing it in response to your initial enquiry. Please rest assured that
London Borough of Sutton is committed to the principle of transparency and
thank you for giving us the opportunity to improve our responsiveness as a
result of your feedback.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Blackwell

Senior Legal Assistant

Legal Services

London Borough of Sutton

This email and the information it contains are confidential and intended
solely for

the exclusive use of the individual to whom it is addressed. If you are
not the intended

recipient, this email should not be copied, forwarded, or printed for any
purpose, or

the contents disclosed to any other person. If you have received this
email in error,

please notify the London Borough of Sutton immediately on +44 (020) 8770
5000 or

email [email address] and then delete the email.

Although the London Borough of Sutton operates anti-virus programmes, it
does not

accept any responsibility for any damage whatsoever that is caused by
viruses being

passed.

This message has been scanned for malware.