Basic Transparency Information: Records of Decisions, Policies, Spending, Correspondence, Diaries, Performance.

The request was refused by Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner.

Dear Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner,

Could you please release:

1. The record of each decision made by the Police and Crime Commissioner to-date along with any recommendation and supporting material supplied to the commissioner in relation to each decision.

2. All policies, protocols or similar adopted by the Police and Crime Commissioner's Office.

3. For each item of expenditure incurred by the Police and Crime Commissioner's office to-date the amount, recipient, description and any other descriptive information held eg. cost centre, authoriser etc.

4. Information on the quantity of correspondence received by the commissioner from the public and their elected representatives to-date. I would like to receive this information in whatever format, and broken down in whatever manner, it may have already been prepared for management purposes and/or presentation to the commissioner.

5. The number of "surgery" appointments made to-date with the commissioner; including where the information is not personal information and for example relates not to an individual but a company, council or group details of who attended, or are planning to attend.

6. The Commissioner and Deputy's past, and future, diaries ie. :
i/ Those events attended in the past and those which there is currently a plan for the commissioner or his deputy to attend in the future.
ii/ Those events the commissioner's office is aware of. As well as events to which a specific invite has been received I suspect information may also be held on, for example, local police priority setting meetings meetings of the force executive board, community safety partnerships, local councils, etc.
iii/ Any periods the Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner have made their office aware they are unavailable eg. for holidays etc.
iv/ Details of invitations to events, in the past, or future, which have been declined; along with any explanation if recorded.

7. Any force performance monitoring reports and/or statistics provided to the commissioner by Cambridgeshire Police, including any such material from collaborative alliances / working groups etc. involving other forces.

8. Any papers for information, or comment, provided by Cambridgeshire Police or collaborative alliances / working groups etc. involving other forces. to the commissioner's office along and with any response from the commissioner.

Regards,

--

Richard Taylor
Cambridge
http://www.rtaylor.co.uk

Richard Taylor left an annotation ()

There is a law which requires Police and Crime Commissioners to pro-actively publish much of the information requested above:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/...

However while Cambridgeshire's Commissioner has a holding page on his website he has not yet published the material.

cambs-pcc,

Dear Mr Taylor

Thank you for your email of 7 January 2013 with your Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

Your request will now be considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. You will receive a response within the statutory timescale as defined by the Act. but if we require any further clarification regarding your request, we will advise you.

Please note that the nature of certain requests may involve payment of a fee. If this is the case, you will be notified.

Yours sincerely

Rowena Sampson DMS
Policy Officer - Engagement
Office of the Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner
Police Headquarters
Hinchingbrooke, Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire PE29 6NP
Tel: 01480 425990
email: [email address]

Follow us on Twitter @PCCCambs

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1 Attachment

Dear Mr Taylor

In reply to your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, dated 7 January 2013 and received by the Office of the Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) as follows:

Could you please release:

1. The record of each decision made by the Police and Crime Commissioner to-date along with any recommendation and supporting material supplied to the commissioner in relation to each decision.

2. All policies, protocols or similar adopted by the Police and Crime Commissioner's Office.

3. For each item of expenditure incurred by the Police and Crime Commissioner's office to-date the amount, recipient, description and any other descriptive information held e.g. cost centre, authoriser etc.

4. Information on the quantity of correspondence received by the commissioner from the public and their elected representatives to-date. I would like to receive this information in whatever format, and broken down in whatever manner, it may have already been prepared for management purposes and/or presentation to the commissioner.

5. The number of "surgery" appointments made to-date with the commissioner; including where the information is not personal information and for example relates not to an individual but a company, council or group details of who attended, or are planning to attend.

6. The Commissioner and Deputy's past, and future, diaries i.e.. :
i/ Those events attended in the past and those which there is currently a plan for the commissioner or his deputy to attend in the future.
ii/ Those events the commissioner's office is aware of. As well as events to which a specific invite has been received I suspect information may also be held on, for example, local police priority
setting meetings of the force executive board, community safety partnerships, local councils, etc.
iii/ Any periods the Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner have made their office aware they are unavailable e.g.. for holidays etc.
iv/ Details of invitations to events, in the past, or future, which have been declined; along with any explanation if recorded.

7. Any force performance monitoring reports and/or statistics provided to the commissioner by Cambridgeshire Police, including any such material from collaborative alliances / working groups
etc. involving other forces.

8. Any papers for information, or comment, provided by Cambridgeshire Police or collaborative alliances / working groups etc. involving other forces. to the commissioner's office along and with any response from the commissioner.

Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the “appropriate limit”. For Police forces in the UK, the "appropriate limit" is considered to be up to 18 hours of work on one request. This information is given in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.

It is estimated that it will take not less than 20 hours to provide a full answer to this request.

This is due to the way financial information is being collated in the office of the Commissioner. For the OPCC to locate each item of expenditure incurred by the Commissioner’s office a manual review of all invoices, expense claims, requisitions and payments would be required. Our calculation is that there are no fewer than 100 separate lines of expenditure which would need to be reviewed in this way and that it would take an experienced officer between 12 and 15 minutes to review each of these to extract the relevant information.

This equates to a minimum of 20 to 25 hours on this part of your request alone. It is also our expectation that other aspects of the request may also exceed cost even if submitted separately.

Unfortunately, we would not be able to recommend a method by which your request could be pared down into one manageable within the cost exemption.

The OPCC would like to thank you for your patience on the matter but should you be unhappy with the way your FOI request has been dealt with, your attention is drawn to the attached sheet which details your right of complaint.

Yours sincerely

Rowena Sampson DMS
Policy Officer - Engagement
Office of the Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner
Police Headquarters
Hinchingbrooke, Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire PE29 6NP
Tel: 01480 425990
email: [email address]

Follow us on Twitter @PCCCambs

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Dear Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner,

I would like to request an internal review into your response to my Freedom of Information request made on the 7th of January 2013 with the subject:

"Basic Transparency Information: Records of Decisions, Policies, Spending, Correspondence, Diaries, Performance."

The response states:

"For the OPCC to locate each item of expenditure incurred by the Commissioner’s office a manual review of all invoices, expense claims, requisitions and payments would be required. "

I would like the review to consider if this is in-fact the case or if the Commissioner's Office is using a computerised finance system from which the requested information could be extracted.

I would also like the review to consider if it was appropriate to ignore all but one element of my request and if the advice and assistance given was reasonable when it states: "we would not be able to recommend a method by which your request could be pared down into one manageable within the cost exemption".

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ba...

Regards,

--

Richard Taylor
Cambridge
http://www.rtaylor.co.uk

Richard Taylor left an annotation ()

While not directly stating the publication is in response to this FOI request the following documents have been published by the Police and Crime Commissioner:

"Decision Making Policy"
http://www.cambridgeshire-pcc.gov.uk/wp-...

"Financial Regulations"
http://www.cambridgeshire-pcc.gov.uk/wp-...

"Corporate Governance Framework"
http://www.cambridgeshire-pcc.gov.uk/wp-...

"Scheme of Governance"
http://www.cambridgeshire-pcc.gov.uk/wp-...

"Capital Programme"
http://www.cambridgeshire-pcc.gov.uk/wp-...

Dear Mr Taylor

Thank you for your email of 28 January 2013.

As you have requested, we are conducting a review of our decision to your FOI request, and anticipate we will reply to you formally by Friday next week, 15 February 2013.

I am sorry this is taking some time, and thank you for your patience.

If you have any query in the meantime please email or call me.

Yours sincerely

Rowena Sampson DMS
Policy Officer - Engagement
Office of the Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner
Police Headquarters
Hinchingbrooke, Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire PE29 6NP
Tel: 01480 425990
email: [email address]

Follow us on Twitter @PCCCambs

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Dear Mr Taylor

I write, further to your request of 28 January 2013 for an internal review of the response provided to you in respect of your Freedom of Information request dated 7 January 2013. I confirm that there has been an independent review, which includes the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner, held last week to consider your request.

The response, emailed to you on 28 January, was reviewed and considered as to whether the application of a refusal under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 was wholly appropriate, based on the information received.

Section 12 does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request where it estimates that the cost of complying exceeds an appropriate limit, currently 18 hours. In conducting the review, those officers responsible were given full access to all documents relating to the decision making..

Question 3 of your original request specifically asked for full information in respect of the expenditure incurred by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner to date. It was found that the assessment made by the officer accurately describes the process by which retrieval of your information would be undertaken. Much of the detail is recorded only on paper records due to the depth of the detail, and some documents have yet to be transferred onto computerised systems.

Thus, a manual retrieval process would be necessary and the only way to provide the information. The assessment of the required time was made by experienced handlers of this type of data and would appear to be realistic.

The view is that the case officer’s application of section 12 was appropriate on this occasion, and was based on a realistic estimate of the manual retrieval time. The original decision is therefore upheld.

If you remain dissatisfied you may refer your concerns to the Information Commissioner, as detailed in our formal response emailed to you on 28 January

Yours sincerely

Dr Dorothy Gregson
Chief Executive
Office of Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner

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Richard Taylor left an annotation ()

I have refined and separated elements of my request and made the following new requests:

Volume of Correspondence:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/vo...

Police Performance Monitoring Reports:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/po...

Commissioner's Diary:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...

Details of Expenditure:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/de...