Our ref:                CMS 201181

Dear Mr Firth,

Thank you for your e-mail of 6 March, in which you asked for the following
information:

‘Please provide all correspondence between the DCMS and UK public
libraries and their representatives in which the Digital Economy Act is
mentioned. Please limit searches to the date range of April 2010 to 6th
March 2012.

In particular please include in your search communications with groups
representing libraries such as Copyright for Knowledge and international
bodies such as the IFLA.

I am particularly interested in any correspondence where the likely costs
and effects on libraries and other public institutions relating to the
Digital Economy Act 2010 are discussed, eg. the provision of internet
access and WiFi in libraries’.

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
After a check of the Department’s records I can confirm that DCMS holds
some information within the scope of your request. However, in order to
respond properly to you I first need further clarification from you on the
exact terms of your request. This is because your request as currently
worded would require us to undertake a long process of searching through
all our correspondence with many organizations such as the Arts Council,
the British Library or the former MLA in relation to a wide range of
policy areas including digital legal deposit or the public lending right.
However, the majority of references to the Digital Economy Act in that
correspondence will be minor references within documents primarily on
other subjects. This would also require a search of paper files and
e-mails, many of which would have been produced by people who have now
moved or left DCMS.

You mention that you are particularly interested in the effect of the
Digital Economy Act in relation to wi-fi in libraries. If you are able to
limit your request to that topic and formal meeting minutes or
correspondence (ie. excluding minor e-mails between officials) it would
mean that the you would not have to wait a long time for us to clear a
string of e-mails, the content of most of which will be of no interst to
you.

If you would like to discuss the terms of the request before responding,
then please do not hesitate to contact me at [1][email address]. 
We aim to deal with your response promptly once your clarification has
been received, and will treat it as a new request from the date we receive
your clarification. In the meantime we will close this case on our system.

If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of our response to your request
for information and/or wish to appeal against information being withheld,
please send full details within two calendar months of the date of this
e-mail to [2][email address].

You also have the right to ask the Information Commissioner (ICO) to
investigate any aspect of your complaint. Please note that the ICO is
likely to expect internal complaints procedures to have been exhausted
before beginning his investigation.

If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact
me.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team

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Our ref: CMS 205058

Dear Mr Firth,

Thank you for your e-mail of 20 April in which you requested:

‘Please limit the scope of your search to communications between the
minister Ed Vaizey and libraries concerning the initial obligations code
of the Digital Economy Act.

Ed Vaizy is the Minister responsible for the DEA, he is not otherwise
responsible for libraries, so overall his communication with libraries
should be limited.

I would like to request any such communication in the date range of April
2010 to 20 April 2012.

However, in particular I would like you to ascertain whether there was any
communication between Ed Vaizey and libraries on the DEA Code in:

* Jan 2011

* November 2011

* March 2012

* April 2012.

I would also like to request any communication between Ofcom and Ed Vaizey
in relation to libraries and how they are considered in the DEA initial
obligations code. The time range is April 2010 to 20 April 2012.’

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(‘the Act’). I can confirm that DCMS holds some information within the
scope of your request. That information is attached. Some information has
been redacted under section 40 of the Act (personal information), and some
information outside the scope of your request has also been redacted.

Although Ed Vaizey is the minister responsible for libraries, in practice
libraries do not correspond with him directly; if they were unhappy with
government policy their local authority would write on their behalf, but
DCMS has received no such correspondence. DCMS also holds no
correspondence between Ofcom and Ed Vaizey in relation to libraries.

If you would find it helpful to telephone DCMS discuss your request
further, libraries policy colleagues here would be pleased to assist you.

If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of our response to your Freedom of
Information Act request and/or wish to appeal against information being
withheld from you please send full details within two calendar months of
the date of this e-mail to [1][email address]. You also have the
right to ask the Information Commissioner (ICO) to investigate any aspect
of your complaint. Please note that the ICO is likely to expect internal
complaints procedures to have been exhausted before beginning his
investigation.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

2-4 Cockspur Street

London

SW1Y 5DH

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Our ref: CMS 208197

Dear Mr Firth,

Thank you for your e-mail of 9 June asking for an internal review DCMS’s
decision to withhold information in response to your request under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (‘the Act’) for information held by the
department relating to communications with libraries on the effect of the
Digital Economy Act 2010 (‘the DEA’). You raised three particular concerns
and I deal with them in turn.

(i)     At the time of your request, DCMS did not have a copy of Ed
Vaizey’s letter of 12 January 2011, but we have since obtained a copy. As
we did not hold that letter at the time of your request (and the Act did
not require us to obtain that copy), we are not required to send it to
you. I am, however, now enclosing it with this letter. I can also confirm
that several exhaustive searches have uncovered no further documents held
by DCMS within the scope of your request.

(ii)   The Act entitles the public to information, not necessarily to
complete or partially complete original documents or copies. The document
with file name ‘r_205058 bl note.pdf’ covers a range of topics, several of
which do not mention the DEA and so they were redacted as they were
outside the scope of your request. The document also contains names of
junior officials at DCMS and the British Library. These were redacted
under section 40 (personal information) of the Act; section 40 is an
absolute exemption and does not require a public interest test.

After reviewing document ‘r_205058 bl note.pdf’, I consider that DCMS
correctly withheld information that was outside the scope of your request
and also under section 40 of the Act. However, I can tell you that the
non-DEA issues in the document are the newspaper industry, the DCMS
Spending Review, the Lindisfarne Gospels and mention of a DCMS staff tour
of an exhibition at the British Library.

(iii) Your original request was for ‘all correspondence between the DCMS
and UK public libraries and their representatives in which the Digital
Economy Act is mentioned’. We did not include your original e-mail in the
documents sent to you as we are not aware that you are a representative of
a UK public library. We also considered that you would retain a copy of
your own correspondence. For the sake of completeness, I now enclose a
copy of your original request.

You also expressed concern that DCMS asked you to clarify your original
request on the twentieth working day after receiving it. DCMS endeavours
to respond to requests well within the 20 working days permitted under the
Act, and in many cases we do so. However, at busy periods we may need to
use the full period and to do so is entirely within the terms of the Act.

If you are not content with the outcome of this internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision, quoting the reference at the top of this letter. The Information
Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely,

REBECCA AUST

Ministerial Support Team

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