City of London Road Complaints

The request was refused by City of London Corporation.

Dear City of London Corporation,

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I’d like to make a request regarding complaints filed against the roads regulated by your authority.

During these time periods:
01/04/2014 - 31/03/2015
01/04/2015 - 31/03/2016
01/04/2016 - 31/03/2017
01/04/2017 - 31/03/2018
01/04/2018 - 31/03/2019

Specifically, I’d like to request data on which roads have had the most complaints filed against them regarding their condition.

If this could include:
The specific roads which receive the most complaints regarding road conditions.
The amount of complaints received regarding condition for each of the roads above.

If I could please receive the data in a spreadsheet format, that would be fantastic. Feel free to get in touch if you require any clarification from myself.

Yours faithfully,

Russ Hunter

COL-EB-InformationOfficer, City of London Corporation

Dear Russ Hunter,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) – REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

The City of London (CoL) acknowledges receipt of your request for information of 3 January 2020.

Public authorities are required to respond to requests within the statutory timescale of 20 working days beginning from the first working day after they receive a request. The Act does not always require public authorities to disclose the information which they hold.

The FOIA applies to the CoL as a local authority, police authority and port health authority. The CoL is the local and police authority for the “Square Mile”, ie the historic City of London, and not for London as a whole. Please see the following page containing a link to a map (‘Explore the City’), which shows the local authority area covered by the CoL:
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/maps/Pag....

The CoL does have some functions, including Port Health Authority functions, which extend beyond the City boundary. For further information please see: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Information Officer
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1243
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

________________________________________________________

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DBE - Information, City of London Corporation

Dear Russ Hunter,
 
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
 
Following your request of 03 January 2020 and our acknowledgement of the
same date, the City of London (CoL) responds as follows. 
 
This response acts a refusal notice in accordance with section 17 of the
FOIA. The request is refused under section 12 of the FOIA.
 
We note that the CoL receives an average of 324 complaints a year (27 a
month) regarding  the 966 streets regulated. We are unable to collate
information relating to specific complaints regarding road conditions.
 
FOI Section 12 – Requests where the cost of appropriate compliance exceeds
the appropriate limit.
 
In accordance with section 1(1)(a) of the FOIA the CoL confirms that it
would hold information relevant to the request. However, it estimates that
to comply with the request would exceed the cost/time allowed for in the
Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees)
Regulations 2004 (made under section 12 of the FOIA), called (as you may
know) the 'appropriate limit', of £450, representing 18 hours work by one
person equivalent. Public authorities are not required to comply with
requests free of charge which it is estimated may exceed the appropriate
limit. Where they do comply, they are allowed to charge the full permitted
cost, at the statutory chargeable rate of £25 an hour. For resource
reasons, it is the practice of the CoL not to comply with requests which
exceed the appropriate limit.
 
In accordance with the FOI Fees Regulations an authority is allowed to
take into account, in calculating the estimated compliance time, the time
taken in -
 
"(a) determining whether it holds the information,
(b) locating the information,
(c) retrieving the information, and
(d) extracting the information from a document containing it."
 
In accordance with the Information Tribunal’s Decision Notice ref:
EA/2006/0085, which makes reference to calculation of estimates and
compiling the information, the CoL also considers the description covers
compiling the information, in so far as it can be said that the
information does not technically exist until it is collated.
 
The Department of the Built Environment (DBE) receive correspondence
directly concerning road complaints. The Department may also receive
additional requests from other Departments of the CoL that include
references to highway matters but cover a number of topics.
 
These enquiries may be required to be dealt with by different service
areas within the DBE, and indeed other Departments of the CoL as a whole.
Additionally, requests and enquiries concerning road complaint enquiries
may be received via any of the publicly available email addresses, twitter
accounts, and Facebook for each of the CoL Departments.
 
The estimated time it would take to locate, retrieve and/or compile the
requested information would be in excess of 1,600 hours. It is calculated
that it would take up to 1 hour to collate a report combining all reported
Highways issues for each complaint, making a total of 324 collated
highways reports to collate, which in accordance with the rate allowed to
be charged, would be the equivalent to a cost of £40,000.
 
Clearly, in reality, the search times would doubtless be much greater. If
we were to additionally include all of the CoL external facing email
addresses, twitter accounts and Facebook.
 
We note also the Commissioner's guidance as provided in his Decision
Notice (Ref: FS 50238979) as to what constitutes a significant burden to a
public authority in complying with a request, namely where "significant
involvement and coordination of staff across the public authority
extracting information from numerous sources" would be involved, as it
would in this instance.
 
Please also note that the Commissioner has stated (FS 50227557) with
regard to FOIA section 12, to which the above Fees Regulations relate,
that the purpose of the section "is to prevent the possibility of a
disproportionate level of search and that it is reasonable in these
circumstances to adjudicate on the basis of a reasonable estimate of the
worst case scenario". Nevertheless, we consider that our estimate is not a
worse case estimate but a conservative one, as explained above.
 
Finally, please note that the Commissioner has stated (FS 50353495) that
“Section 12 of the Act provides an exclusion from complying with a
request. It is not subject to a public interest test”.
 
In accordance with best practice guidance as described in the Information
Commissioner's decision notice ref FS 50203140, after applying the
appropriate limit a public authority is required to provide advice and
assistance, in so far as is possible, as to ways in which an applicant
could reduce their request so that it may fall within the appropriate
limit.
 
However, where broad terms are used in requests, where a large amount of
documentation is requested rather than specific information, and where in
general a request is broad in nature and scope, the Commissioner has
upheld the view (FS 50353385, FS 50353499) that it can be impossible to
offer any advice and assistance to enable the applicant to narrow a
request. We consider that in this instance, because of the nature of your
request, we are unable to provide guidance as to how to narrow it.
 
Should you wish to submit a further FOIA request after consideration of
the scope and breadth of the information you require we would reconsider
this. However; this would be considered a new request and would be subject
to the exemptions as set out in the FOIA.
 
Despite the application of the s12 FOIA exemption we hope that this
response is of assistance.
 
If you wish to make a complaint about the way the CoL has managed your
enquiry, please use the following link to the CoL’s FOI complaints
procedure : [1]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Feedback, at the end of which is
located the FOI complaints procedure. If, having used the CoL’s FOI
Complaints Procedure, you are still dissatisfied, you may request the
Information Commissioner to investigate. Please contact: Information
Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Telephone: (01625) 545700.  Website: [2]http://www.ico.org.uk/.
 
The CoL holds the copyright in specify this communication. The supply of
it does not give you a right to re-use it in a way that would infringe
that copyright, for example, by making copies, publishing and issuing
copies to the public or to any other person. Brief extracts of any of the
material may be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the
purposes of research for non-commercial purposes, private study,
criticism, review and news reporting, subject to an acknowledgement of the
copyright owner.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
 
Departmental Business Unit
Department of the Built Environment
Phone      020 7606 3030
[3]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
 
 

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