Corporate Asset Management Strategy and Capital Investment Strategy

Samantha Kerr made this Freedom of Information request to West Lothian Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was partially successful.

Dear West Lothian Council,

I welcome your recent announcement that programme to invest nearly £390 Million that will support the councils delivery of essential services for the next ten years and beyond.

However, this announcement failed to mention how this strategy would be financed, therefore under the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) 2002 I request the following information:

For each portfolio [i.e. Education, Housing etc.] please advise ALL sources of funding?

Please advise of any/all external methods of capital and asset revenue that are planned, for example, council borrowing, contracting with an external consortium to fund and additionally design, build and own any property or assets, that would lead the council to paying an annual payment or unitary charge?

Please advise what the council estimates to be the cost in real terms of the £380 Million investment at the end of the 10 year planning strategy (including but not limited to interest payments, unitary charge payments)?

Yours faithfully,

Samantha Kerr

West Lothian Council

Data Label: OFFICIAL

Dear Ms Kerr

Information Request

Our Reference: 101005864973

Thank you for your recent request for information which has been logged
and transferred to the appropriate Service Information Liaison Officer
(ILO) who will provide a response, in most cases, within 20 working days.

Should the ILO require further information to process your request then
they will contact you directly. If you require any further assistance then
please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards

Keith

Customer Service

Tel: 01506 280000
Email: [email address]
Web: www.westlothian.gov.uk

Find us on:

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Your personal information will be held and used in accordance with the
Data Protection Act 1998. The Council will not disclose your information
to a third party or organisation but where appropriate will use your
personal details to process this and any future enquiries that you may
contact us about.

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West Lothian Council

06/03/2018

Dear Ms Kerr

Freedom Of Information

Reference no. 101005864973

I refer to your request for information dated 05/03/2018.

Dear West Lothian Council,

I welcome your recent announcement that programme to invest nearly £390 Million that will support the councils delivery of essential services for the next ten years and beyond.

However, this announcement failed to mention how this strategy would be financed, therefore under the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) 2002 I request the following information:

For each portfolio [i.e. Education, Housing etc.] please advise ALL sources of funding?

West Lothian Council are refusing the request under Section 17 of the Freedom of information (Scotland) Act 2002 on the basis that the council do not hold the information . However, West Lothian Council plans on an overall corporate resources basis therefore a breakdown of resources for each portfolio or asset category is not available. The council determined the overall level of potential resources available for investment and allocated this to individual projects in line with the process outlined in the report. A breakdown of the overall corporate resources by funding type was included in Appendix 2 of the report (link: http://coins.westlothian.gov.uk/coins/vi...).

Please advise of any/all external methods of capital and asset revenue that are planned, for example, council borrowing, contracting with an external consortium to fund and additionally design, build and own any property or assets, that would lead the council to paying an annual payment or unitary charge?

As outlined in Appendix 2 of the report, the council is estimating external borrowing to fund the programme of £10 million. At this stage, no further design, build, finance and maintain projects are included in the ten year capital programme approved on 13 February 2018.

Please advise what the council estimates to be the cost in real terms of the £380 Million investment at the end of the 10 year planning strategy (including but not limited to interest payments, unitary charge payments)?

West Lothian Council are refusing the request under Section 17 of the Freedom of information (Scotland) Act 2002 on the basis that the council do not hold the information. In line with long term treasury forecasting, the council calculates the overall costs of servicing the council's borrowing including loans principal repayments, external interest payments and treasury management expenses. This includes both historic debt related to previous capital programmes and debt required to fund the ten year capital programme approved on 13 February 2018. As affordability is calculated on a total basis, the specific cost relating to new programme is not available.

You are free to use the information supplied in this response for your own non-commercial research or private study purposes. The information may also be used for any other purpose allowed by a limitation or exception in copyright law, such as news reporting. Any such use must be in context and must not be misleading. Any other type of re-use, for example by publishing the information in analogue or digital form, including on the internet or commercial use, will require the permission of the intellectual property owner and copyright owner.

Further details as to how to apply to re-use information supplied by us can be found on our website at www.westlothian.gov.uk/freedom-of-inform...

If you have any complaint about the Council's handling of your request for information, you may require the Council to review its actions and decisions in relation to this response. Please write, within 40 working days from the receipt of this information, to Carol Johnston, Chief Solicitor, West Lothian Council, West Lothian Civic Centre, Howden South Road, Livingston EH54 6FF (Telephone: 01506 281605, email: [email address]). The request should be in writing, email or other permanent format and should state your name, address and specify the original request for information and the reason for your dissatisfaction.

In the event that you have not received a response to your request within 20 working days (allowing time for postage), or if you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the Internal Review, a further right of review exists to the Scottish Information Commissioner. You can apply online: www.itspublicknowledge.info/Appeal or in writing to the Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner, Kinburn Castle, Doubledykes Road, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9DS (01334 464610; email [email address]).

You can apply to the Commissioner for a decision on the manner in which the Council has dealt with your request. The application must be submitted within six months after the date of receipt by you of the outcome of the Internal Review or in the event of the Council failing to comply with the Internal Review within six months of the expiry of the time period for compliance. The application should be in writing, email or other permanent format, state your name, address and the reason for your dissatisfaction with the original response and internal review. Should you then wish to appeal against the Commissioner's decision, there is a right of appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law only. Any such appeal must be made within 42 days after the date of intimation of the Commissioner's decision.

Yours Sincerely

Vivienne Robertson

West Lothian Council

DATA LABEL: PRIVATE/CONFIDENTIAL

In accordance with our Corporate Policy you may be contacted shortly to obtain your views on how we handled your request.

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This message, together with any attachments, is sent subject to the
following statements:

1. It is sent in confidence for the addressee only. It may
contain legally privileged information. The contents are
not to be disclosed to anyone other than the addressee.
Unauthorised recipients are requested to preserve this
confidentiality and to advise the sender immediately.
2. It does not constitute a representation which is legally
binding on the Council or which is capable of constituting
a contract and may not be founded upon in any proceedings
following hereon unless specifically indicated otherwise.

http://www.westlothian.gov.uk

Dear West Lothian Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of West Lothian Council's handling of my FOI request 'Corporate Asset Management Strategy and Capital Investment Strategy'.

I am disatisfied with your use of exemption 17, with is a qualified and not an absolute exemption.

Additionally the link you provided was an error link.

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

Yours faithfully,

Samantha Kerr

West Lothian Council

Data Label: OFFICIAL

Dear Ms Kerr

Information Request

Our Reference: 101005864973

Thank you for your recent request for information which has been logged
and transferred to the appropriate Service Information Liaison Officer
(ILO) who will provide a response, in most cases, within 20 working days.

Should the ILO require further information to process your request then
they will contact you directly. If you require any further assistance then
please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards

Ruth

Customer Service

Tel: 01506 280000
Email: [email address]
Web: www.westlothian.gov.uk

Find us on:

[1]HTML tutorial [2]HTML tutorial

Your personal information will be held and used in accordance with the
Data Protection Act 1998. The Council will not disclose your information
to a third party or organisation but where appropriate will use your
personal details to process this and any future enquiries that you may
contact us about.

show quoted sections

West Lothian Council

15/03/2018

Dear Ms Kerr

Freedom Of Information

Reference no. 101005869393

I refer to your request for information dated 07/03/2018.

Dear West Lothian Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of West Lothian Council's handling of my FOI request 'Corporate Asset Management Strategy and Capital Investment Strategy'.

I am disatisfied with your use of exemption 17, with is a qualified and not an absolute exemption.

Additionally the link you provided was an error link.

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

Further to your earlier Freedom of information request 101005864973, I apologise that the link provided for the Corporate Asset Management Strategy and General Services Ten Year Capital Investment Strategy 2018/19 to 2027/28 appeared as an error.

This information can be found by accessing the council's webpage: https://www.westlothian.gov.uk/meetings
Click on the related link on the right hand side of the page ¿ latest meetings and agendas
Select the calendar tab on the left hand side and select February 2018, then click on Go, this will bring up all meetings held in February 2018
Click on the meeting West Lothian Council held on 13 February 2018
Select Agenda Item 6, this will give access to the paper ¿ Asset Management Strategy and General Services Ten Year Capital Investment Programme and associated appendices

I would like to clarify that West Lothian Council uses an asset based approach to capital investment based on total available resources therefore we do not have detail on the allocation of either capital investment or capital resources to service areas, as we do not budget in the way outlined in the FOI 101005864973 request.

The Council determine the overall level of resources available, as outlined in appendix 2 of the budget report by resource type ¿ e.g. borrowing, capital grants etc., and then allocate the total pot of money to individual projects. On this basis we do not have the information requested.

West Lothian Council do not calculate the cost of borrowing for the new programme, but calculate the overall cost including historic debt. No distinction is made in our overall treasury expenditure and expenses calculations between historic and new debt.

We will also forward FOI 101005869393 to the team who deal with conducting reviews.

You are free to use the information supplied in this response for your own non-commercial research or private study purposes. The information may also be used for any other purpose allowed by a limitation or exception in copyright law, such as news reporting. Any such use must be in context and must not be misleading. Any other type of re-use, for example by publishing the information in analogue or digital form, including on the internet or commercial use, will require the permission of the intellectual property owner and copyright owner.

Further details as to how to apply to re-use information supplied by us can be found on our website at www.westlothian.gov.uk/freedom-of-inform...

If you have any complaint about the Council's handling of your request for information, you may require the Council to review its actions and decisions in relation to this response. Please write, within 40 working days from the receipt of this information, to Carol Johnston, Chief Solicitor, West Lothian Council, West Lothian Civic Centre, Howden South Road, Livingston EH54 6FF (Telephone: 01506 281605, email: [email address]). The request should be in writing, email or other permanent format and should state your name, address and specify the original request for information and the reason for your dissatisfaction.

In the event that you have not received a response to your request within 20 working days (allowing time for postage), or if you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the Internal Review, a further right of review exists to the Scottish Information Commissioner. You can apply online: www.itspublicknowledge.info/Appeal or in writing to the Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner, Kinburn Castle, Doubledykes Road, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9DS (01334 464610; email [email address]).

You can apply to the Commissioner for a decision on the manner in which the Council has dealt with your request. The application must be submitted within six months after the date of receipt by you of the outcome of the Internal Review or in the event of the Council failing to comply with the Internal Review within six months of the expiry of the time period for compliance. The application should be in writing, email or other permanent format, state your name, address and the reason for your dissatisfaction with the original response and internal review. Should you then wish to appeal against the Commissioner's decision, there is a right of appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law only. Any such appeal must be made within 42 days after the date of intimation of the Commissioner's decision.

Yours Sincerely

Vivienne Robertson

West Lothian Council

DATA LABEL: PRIVATE/CONFIDENTIAL

In accordance with our Corporate Policy you may be contacted shortly to obtain your views on how we handled your request.

[/bookmark]

This message, together with any attachments, is sent subject to the
following statements:

1. It is sent in confidence for the addressee only. It may
contain legally privileged information. The contents are
not to be disclosed to anyone other than the addressee.
Unauthorised recipients are requested to preserve this
confidentiality and to advise the sender immediately.
2. It does not constitute a representation which is legally
binding on the Council or which is capable of constituting
a contract and may not be founded upon in any proceedings
following hereon unless specifically indicated otherwise.

http://www.westlothian.gov.uk

Murphy, Kerri, West Lothian Council

4 Attachments

DATA LABEL: OFFICIAL

Dear What Do They Know,

 

Please see attached internal review response.

 

Kerri Murphy

Solicitor

 

01506 281615

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This message, together with any attachments, is sent subject to the
following statements:

1. It is sent in confidence for the addressee only. It may
contain legally privileged information. The contents are
not to be disclosed to anyone other than the addressee.
Unauthorised recipients are requested to preserve this
confidentiality and to advise the sender immediately.
2. It does not constitute a representation which is legally
binding on the Council or which is capable of constituting
a contract and may not be founded upon in any proceedings
following hereon unless specifically indicated otherwise.

http://www.westlothian.gov.uk

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