Communications & Telephony Request
Dear Historic Royal Palaces,
Please confirm the manufacturer of your telephony system(s) that are currently in place?
When was the installation date of your telephony equipment?
Who maintains your telephony system(s)?
Please confirm value of the initial project and value of annual support/maintenance services (in £)?
When is your contract renewal date?
Please confirm the manufacturer of your Contact centre system(s) that are currently in place?
When was the installation date of your contact centre infrastructure?
Who maintains your contact centre system(s)?
Please confirm value of the initial project and value of annual support/maintenance services (in £)?
How many contact centre employees/agents do you have?
When is your contract renewal date?
Do you use Unified Communications or Collaboration tools such as Microsoft Skype for Business/ Cisco/Avaya/Mitel? If yes, what tools are you currently using?
How many employees do you have overall within your organisation?
Who currently provides your calls and lines?
What is your current annual spend on calls and lines?
When is your contract renewal date?
Are you using SIP or ISDN?
Do you use a wide area network?
Thank you in advance for your support in this.
Yours faithfully,
Daniel Leonard
Dear Mr Leonard,
I write in response to your request, dated 28 November 2019, for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) is the independent charity that looks after The Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, The Banqueting House, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace and Hillsborough Castle. We receive no funding from either the government or the Crown. We raise all our own funds and depend on the support of our visitors, members, donors, sponsors and volunteers.
We believe that it would be inappropriate to disclose the information you have requested given its commercially sensitive nature. We will therefore be withholding the information requested under the section 43(2) exemption (Commercial Interests) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In applying this exemption, we have had to balance the public interest in withholding the information against the public interest in disclosure.
We accept that there is a general public interest in openness and transparency. However, we also believe that disclosure of the information requested would be prejudicial to the interests of our suppliers. Disclosure would reveal competitive elements of their bids, which they would otherwise have no expectation of sharing, and would inhibit fair competition.
We also believe that our own commercial interests would be damaged by disclosure. There would likely be a causal link between disclosing the information requested and suppliers choosing not to bid for work with us due to them not wanting their commercially sensitive information placed in the public domain. This would be detrimental to us and would potentially damage our services and our finances, making it more difficult for us to act in our charity's best interests.
Therefore we find that the public interest in disclosing this information is outweighed by the public interest in withholding the information and therefore the use of a section 43(2) exemption is appropriate.
HRP has an internal review procedure. If you are not happy with our response, you may request an internal review by writing to The Head of Governance via post (The Head of Governance, Chief Executive’s Office, Apt 39, Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, KT8 9AU) or via email ([Historic Royal Palaces request email]) explaining your reasons for seeking a review. If you are then not happy with the outcome of the internal review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
The Information Commissioner’s Office can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Website: www.ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely,
Dominique Phipp
Assistant to the Head of Governance
Sent on behalf of the Head of Governance
Historic Royal Palaces
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