CEM Position on FOIA s.3(2)(a)

Waiting for an internal review by Herschel Grammar School of their handling of this request.

Dear Herschel Grammar School,

Please disclose any correspondence from CEM over the last three calendar months (8 Jan to 8 April 2021) which discusses whether raw 11+ test marks should be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act. Any personal information (eg names or email addresses) relating to the school’s employees or solicitors acting for CEM may be redacted. If any correspondence mentions me personally, I authorise its disclosure into the public domain. Please do not redact the names of any officials at CEM who have written or authorised this correspondence or the name of any legal practice.

Best wishes

James Coombs

Jo Rockall, Herschel Grammar School

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Coombs

 

Following receipt of the ICO decision notice in relation to case reference
IC-115794-C3S8, the school is required to respond to your Freedom of
Information request made on 8^th April 2021.

 

Your request was Please disclose any correspondence from CEM over the last
three calendar months (8 Jan to 8 April 2021) which discusses whether raw
11+ test marks should be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Having checked carefully, I can confirm that the School has no record of
any correspondence from CEM received within the date range specified in
relation to the disclosure of raw 11+ test marks.

 

Yours sincerely

Jo Rockall

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear Herschel Grammar School,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

Thank you for replying to the request for information I made four months ago. It would have been better use of the Information Commissioner’s limited resources if you had replied without requiring her intervention.

S.16 of the FOIA places an obligation on the public authority to provide advice and assistance to anyone seeking information from a public authority. The response I have received appears to be intended to do the opposite. I know there are four schools in the Slough consortium from the website https://www.sloughconsortium.org.uk. What is not clear is how I request information relating to the Slough test, which the four public authorities that make up the consortium are jointly responsible for.

If there is a particular school, or email account associated with the Slough Consortium, which handles Freedom of Information requests please provide details so I can ask the open society volunteers who run the whatdotheyknow.com website to add it to their database and avoid others having to face the problems I have had. I can’t do this unless Herschel Grammar provides the advice and assistance it is lawfully obliged to and I would prefer not to have to involve the Information Commissioner every time I request information.

I would like to request an internal review of the response provided by Herschel Grammar. In a letter dated 19 March 2021, CEM told me that they contacted all of their customers to discuss disclosure of information relating to the tests. I have no reason to believe that information was incorrect. CEM may have contacted customers by letter or email. Email have been sent from CEM’s solicitors, Hewitsons with an email address @hewitsons.com or @hcrlaw.com or from CEM themselves with an address @cem.org. This is intended to be helpful rather than an exhaustive list of all the methods CEM may have used to communicate with the Slough Consortium. The Cabinet Office code of practice advises that the internal review should be undertaken by someone other than the person who took the original decision. The internal review should cover all of the following:
• What searches were carried out to check no information was held within the scope of the request and why would these searches have been likely to retrieve any relevant information?
• A thorough description of any searches of relevant paper/electronic records including details of any staff consultations.
• If searches included electronic data, what search terms were used and whether the search included information both held locally on personal computers and on networked resources and emails.
• If no or inadequate searches were done at the time, what has been done subsequently to rectify this
• If the information had been held whether it would have been held as manual or electronic records
• Whether any recorded information was held relevant to the scope of the request but deleted or destroyed, and if so when public authority ceased to retain this information
• Whether there are records of the destruction of the requested information
• What the formal records management policy says about the retention and deletion of information of this type
• If there is no relevant policy, can the reviewer describe the way in which the public authority has handled comparable records of a similar age in the past
• Whether there is information similar to that requested and whether the public authority has given appropriate advice and assistance in line with the duty contained at s.16 of the FOIA.

In addition to an internal review, I would like to request the following information:
1. A copy of the contract between the Slough Consortium (or schools which make up this consortium) and CEM to supply tests.
2. The amount spent on the tests if this is not contained in the contract. (Please explain if this covers multiple years and approximately how many children are tested. If this is divided between the schools please explain how costs are apportioned between the schools.)

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

best wishes
James Coombs