Correspondence re football (& facilities) in Worcester, 3/4/2015 - 30/6/2017
Dear Sport England,
I would be grateful if you could supply me with copies of all correspondence between yourselves and other parties about football in Worcester and facilities to play football in the city. The most likely parties are Worcester City Football Club (or persons authorised to correspond on their behalf such as directors or consultants), Worcester City (FC) Supporters' Trust (or persons authorised to correspond on their behalf such as directors or consultants), Worcester City Council (officers, councillors or consultants/persons acting on their behalf) and the Football Association (or persons authorised to correspond on their behalf).
The period for which I request the information is between 3rd April 2015 and 30th June 2017.
I am particularly interested in all correspondence/collaboration pertaining to any football facilities at Perdiswell Park and all matters relating to a proposal to build a football stadium/community sports hub there (including potential funding sources). The planning application submitted to Worcester City Council for this is Ref P14M0176 and the case officer is Mr Alan Coleman.
There may have been discussion about how a football stadium on the site might impact on the community's use of the recently built swimming pool and renovated leisure centre; if this has not been mentioned in any correspondence, could you confirm that, please?
There may have been discussion about whether the siting of a stadium on Perdiswell Park might affect the local community's use of the space for informal sport and recreational activities (eg: walking, running) and the canal for fishing. If this has not been mentioned in any correspondence, could you confirm that also, please?
However, this request is not limited to just the aforementioned and other correspondence (eg: regarding alternative stadium sites or discussion of Worcester's football pitches) should be included in this request.
I class correspondence as emails, written letters, memos, meeting minutes and telephone conversations. For telephone conversations, a record of who the call was between, the duration of the call and the subject of the call would be sufficient if no other notes or records for the call exist. In the case of emails please include any attachments.
If the information I have requested exceeds the threshold for what is deemed to be 'reasonable assistance' in this matter, please communicate any costings involved in supplying the information requested in its entirety and suggest how my request may be modified to satisfy requirements.
Your assistance and cooperation is greatly appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
S Hodges
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working days.
Thank you
Information Governance and FOI Manager
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Street, London, WC1B 3HF
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Dear S Hodges,
Thank you for your recent request for information about football and
football facilities in Worcester. Your request was received on 30 June
2017 and has been passed to me as I am responsible for responding to
requests for information held by Sport England.
As a public body, Sport England is subject to the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and we will handle your request in accordance with
the terms set out in the Act. We will provide you with our full response
promptly and usually within twenty working days. In some circumstances we
may extend this to allow us to consider the public interest; if this is
necessary in your case I will write to you again and explain why.
We will be in touch again in due course and in any event not later than 28
July 2017. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us if we can be of
any further assistance.
Kind regards
Gail Laughlan
Information Governance Manager
Dear S Hodges,
Thank you for your recent request for copies of all correspondence
concerning football in Worcester between 3rd April 2015 and 30th June
2017.
We have now conducted a thorough search of our records for correspondence
between Sport England and the following third parties:
· Worcester Football Club
· Worcester City (FC) Supporters’ Trust
· Worcester City Council
· The Football Association
In response I attach a document containing all of the information held by
Sport England falling within the scope of your request.
Please note that we have removed a number of names, email addresses and
telephone numbers from the attached documents because we consider this
information to be exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) Freedom of
Information Act 2000. The names and direct email addresses of our external
partners and our non-senior, non-public facing staff constitutes personal
data as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998. Our external partners and
staff have a reasonable expectation of privacy and would not expect us to
make information about their working lives public. As such, disclosure of
this information would not be fair and in direct contravention of the
first data protection principle.
This completes our response to your information request.
As a public body, Sport England is subject to the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and this means you are entitled to complain if you
are unhappy with the way we have handled your information request and/or
ask us to review our decision.
If you would like to complain about the way we have handled your request
or ask for our decision to be reviewed please contact:
Erin Stephens
Principal In House Solicitor
Sport England
1st Floor, 21 Bloomsbury Street
London
WC1B 3HF
Email: [1][Sport England request email]
Please describe your original request, explain your grounds for
dissatisfaction and include an address for correspondence. We aim to
complete internal reviews within twenty working days.
If you are not content with the outcome of our Internal Review you have
the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner. Generally speaking
the Information Commissioner will not be able to consider an appeal unless
you have first exhausted the Internal Review procedure provided by Sport
England.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
[2]www.ico.org.uk
Kind regards
Dear Ms Laughlan
Thank you for your response to my request for information. Although you say that the document contains all the information held by Sport England and it completes your response to my FOI request, I believe several items of correspondence have not been included in the response.
1) The email on 29th March at 10:59 to Worcester City Council (WCC) thanks them for re-consulting and says that the sender has consulted the FA. The following do not appear to have been included in your response to my FOI:
- Communication from WCC to Sport England reconsulting on the P14M0176 application for a stadium
- Any communication from Sport England asking the FA for comments (this is also referred to in the email of 27th March noting that the consultation period ended that day)
- The FA's response to Sport England about the P14M0176 application.
2) The email of 8th June 2017 from WCC's Head of Development Planning and Enforcement (subject includes the reference P14M0176 and "Perdiswell") refers to an email from the [applicant's] agent to Sport England on 25th May in response to Sport England's comments; neither the original email nor the attached copy referred to in the 8th June email have been included.
3) Sport England's 2017 response to Worcester City Council to the consultation about the Perdiswell planning application (and any email accompanying it) have not been included.
4) A response from Worcester City Council to another FOI request indicates that on 29th June 2017 a member of Sport England's staff sent an email to A Coleman (WCC) which has not been included in the information you have supplied. This was regarding an email query which Sport England had received from a local resident; the subject of the original email was "SE planning consultation - possible failure to divulge to you information material to opinion." The original email (with the planning application reference P14M0176 mentioned in my request) and any communication following as a result of the query have not been included in the information supplied.
5) All the correspondence you have supplied so far is dated between 27th March 2017 and 12th June 2017. Can you confirm that there was no other communication relevant to this request (about football in Worcester, facilities to play football in the city, football facilities at Perdiswell Park and all matters relating to the proposal to build a football stadium/community sports hub there (including potential funding sources)) during the period between 3rd April 2015 and 27th March 2017?
6) Could you also confirm, as per my request, that between 3rd April 2015 and 30th June 2017 there was no discussion between Sport England and any other party:
i) about how a football stadium on the Perdiswell site might impact on the community's use of the recently built swimming pool and renovated leisure centre?
ii) about whether the siting of a stadium on Perdiswell Park might affect the local community's use of the space for informal sport and recreational activities?
Please send all relevant correspondence which was omitted when responding to this request.
Thank you for your assistance.
Yours sincerely,
S Hodges
Please accept this email as confirmation that your message has been
received by Sport England’s FOI mailbox.
You will receive a full acknowledgement of your message within five
working days.
Thank you
Information Governance and FOI Manager
Sport England's London office has moved to 1st Floor, 21 Bloomsbury
Street, London, WC1B 3HF
[1]Description: Sport England
Creating a sporting habit for life
[2]Description: Sport [3]Description: Be [4]Description: Sport England
England Twitter Inspired Newsletter
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Twitter
Level 1 21 Bloomsbury Street London WC1B 3HF
The information contained in this e-mail may be subject to public
disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Additionally, this
email and any attachment are confidential and intended solely for the use
of the individual to whom they are addressed. If you are not the intended
recipient, be advised that you have received this email and any attachment
in error, and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or
copying, is strictly prohibited.
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Dear S Hodges,
Thank you for your email dated 11 August in which you seek clarification
about our response to your Freedom of Information request.
I will consult with the relevant colleagues and provide our response as
soon as possible within twenty working days.
Kind regards
Gail Laughlan Information Governance Manager T: 020 7273 1680 M: 07787
105104
Hodges left an annotation ()
Sport England responded within the time but their response was not complete (see my reply to them). A response from them to a previous request also omitted a document. I have politely asked them to check and provide the missing communications; I feel I have provided sufficient information for them to easily identify what they have not provided.
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Hodges left an annotation ()
Correspondence supplied does not seem to be complete. A follow-up email has been sent on 11/08/17 asking for the missing correspondence.