Equality Legislation matters - PhD students
M Hands made this Freedom of Information request to Imperial College London This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.
Dear Imperial College London,
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2019
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2020
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2021
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2022
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2023
To request the number of PhD Supervisors who have left the University 2019 to 2023
To request the number of PhD students who completed their courses after
36 months
48 month
72 months
The longest time it has taken for anyone to complete a PhD with the University
Yours faithfully,
M Hands
Dear M Hands,
This is to acknowledge receipt of your request, made under the Freedom of Information Act. The College will respond to your request by 12 April.
Yours,
Freedom of Information Team
Imperial College London
Dear IMPFOI,
We are prompted to remind you:-
The response to our request has been delayed. We can say that, by law, the authority should normally have responded promptly and by 17 April 2023.
Note quote
How do you calculate the deadline shown on request pages? #
The Freedom of Information Act says:
A public authority must comply with section 1(1) promptly and in any event not later than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt.
In our opinion, what matters most here is that the law says authorities must respond promptly.
If there is a good reason why the request is going to take a while to process, requesters find it really helpful if you can send a quick email with a sentence or two saying what is happening.
FOI officers often have to do a lot of hard work to answer requests, and this is hidden from the public. We think it would help everyone to have more of that complexity visible.
End quote
Yours sincerely,
M Hands
Dear M Hands,
Please accept our apologies, we had recorded that we had written to you on 20 March, but I have located the email in the drafts folder rather than the sent folder so it appears that it was not sent. The draft was as follows:
We are writing to you further to our duty, contained at Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act, to provide advice and assistance to requesters.
We have rephrased and numbered you request for ease of reference:
1. The number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023
2. The number of PhD students who completed their courses after 36 months, 48 months and 72 months
3. The longest time it has taken for anyone to complete a PhD with the University
We have contacted our HR and Student data teams. HR have advised that the College is not able to provide data for part 1 of your request because PhD supervisory roles are not recorded on staff records.
Regarding the second query - number of PhD students who completed their courses after 36, 48 and 72 months - you have not stated a time-period. Are you hoping to obtain this data by academic year of completion, i.e. in 2019 how many students who completed their PhD did so after 36, 48 etc. months? Please note that we would be unable to provide figures for the 2022/23 academic year as it is not complete.
It is not clear how the information requested in your second and third question is relevant to or could inform debates on equality legislation. If you wish to proceed with these elements of your request, please explain why it would be in the public interest for the College to generate and place this information into the public domain. The public interest being the public good, not what is of interest to the public, and not the private interests of the requester.
Yours,
Anita Hunt
Access to Information Manager
Central Secretariat
Imperial College London
Yours,
Anita Hunt
Freedom of Information Team
Imperial College London
Dear IMPFOI,
Thank you for your interest in providing an appointment response
Whereby you said
Quote
Please accept our apologies, we had recorded that we had written to you on 20 March, but I have located the email in the drafts folder rather than the sent folder so it appears that it was not sent. The draft was as follows:
We are writing to you further to our duty, contained at Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act, to provide advice and assistance to requesters.
End quote
We shall seek guidance to enable you to respond with the transparency information required
Yours sincerely,
M Hands
Dear M Hands,
You have said "See above" but have not included any information except to forward the email sent earlier today. Please be aware that we are unable to respond to your request in its present form for the reasons stated. Please feel free to submit a revised request in light of the advice given.
Yours,
Freedom of Information Team
Imperial College London
Dear IMPFOI,
Apologies
When we said see above
We ommitted this link
To assist you to respond to the message you had in draft whereby you require clarification to respond
We thought it might help if you saw how a n.othet university had responded to assist you
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/e...
See above (link) * if you are unable to open it we can put it in annotations
Yours sincerely,
M Hands
Dear M Hands,
Please refer to our email to you dated 18 April and advise how you wish to proceed. Another institution's response to your request does not assist.
Yours,
Anita Hunt
Freedom of Information Team
Imperial College London
Dear IMPFOI,
Acknowledged
You aren't able to answer the same way questions from another university were asked
We shall seek guidance and reword for you
Yours sincerely,
M Hands
Dear IMPFOI,
Thank you for your interest in providing an appropriate response
15/03/2023
We asked
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2019
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2020
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2021
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2022
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University - 2023
To request the number of PhD Supervisors who have left the University 2019 to 2023
To request the number of PhD students who completed their courses after
36 months
48 month
72 months
The longest time it has taken for anyone to complete a PhD with the University
18/04/2023
The university apologised for not sending draft
And had reworded
We have rephrased and numbered you request for ease of reference:
1. The number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023
2. The number of PhD students who completed their courses after 36 months, 48 months and 72 months
3. The longest time it has taken for anyone to complete a PhD with the University
We have contacted our HR and Student data teams. HR have advised that the College is not able to provide data for part 1 of your request because PhD supervisory roles are not recorded on staff records.
Regarding the second query - number of PhD students who completed their courses after 36, 48 and 72 months - you have not stated a time-period. Are you hoping to obtain this data by academic year of completion, i.e. in 2019 how many students who completed their PhD did so after 36, 48 etc. months? Please note that we would be unable to provide figures for the 2022/23 academic year as it is not complete.
It is not clear how the information requested in your second and third question is relevant to or could inform debates on equality legislation. If you wish to proceed with these elements of your request, please explain why it would be in the public interest for the College to generate and place this information into the public domain. The public interest being the public good, not what is of interest to the public, and not the private interests of the requester.
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explain why it would be in the public interest for the College to generate and place this information into the public domain
Quote
You should not include:
arguments about your cause
End quote
Quote
It simply gives you the right to ask for documents or data that the authority holds.
End quote
We must therefore refer you to the original request and ask for what information you can provide
Yours sincerely,
M Hands
Dear M Hands,
Thank you for your Freedom of Information Act request, which was:
To request the number of Supervisors overseeing PhD year 1 students at the University – 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023
To request the number of PhD Supervisors who have left the University 2019 to 2023
To request the number of PhD students who completed their courses after
36 months, 48 months, 72 months
The longest time it has taken for anyone to complete a PhD with the University
We wrote to you further to the duty, contained at Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act, to provide advice and assistance to requesters. We explained that the College is not able to provide data for the first part of your request because PhD supervisory roles are not recorded on staff records. The information requested at the first parts of your request is therefore not held by Imperial College.
Regarding the second two parts of your request, we asked you to provide some indication of a time-frame for a search on completion times of PhDs and queried how figures on the length of time taken to complete PhDs could have any public interest value or be relevant to equality legislation (the heading of your request). In response, you have asked us to refer to the original request.
The Freedom of Information Act created a right to access information to enable scrutiny of public authorities in the public interest. Section 14(1) of the Act aims to protect public authorities by allowing them to refuse any requests which have the potential to cause a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption and are therefore deemed vexatious. While we appreciate that your request may have been made in good faith and was not intended to cause disruption, a request can be regarded as vexatious if it is an inappropriate or improper use of the right to access information. Public authorities are entitled to consider whether a request has a value or serious purpose in terms of the objective public interest in the information sought and to weigh that against the burden that would be placed on the organisation by having to produce that information. The public interest being the public good, not what is of interest to groups of or individual members of the public. The College’s view is that there is no public interest value in the information you have requested (in the second part of your request, length of time to complete PhDs) that would justify the College devoting resources to producing the information nor to placing it into the public domain. We are therefore refusing this request in reliance on Section 14 of the Act.
Yours,
Freedom of Information Team
Imperial College London
Please note that if you are unhappy with the way that we have handled your request, you can ask us to conduct a review. Please make your representation in writing within 2 months of the date you received this response. If you remain dissatisfied with how Imperial College has handled your request, you may then approach the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Dear IMPFOI,
Seems identified Imperial College London may have refused all or part of our request under Section 14. we’ll get help to challenge it.
Unless you want to assist at this stage
Yours sincerely,
M Hands
Dear Imperial College London,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Imperial College London's handling of my FOI request 'Equality Legislation matters - PhD students'.
[ GIVING DETAILS ABOUT OUR CONCERNS IN TRANSPARENCY HERE ]:-
Team
We thank you for your invitation to us whereby you invited us to request a review
Request review
Quote
Please note that if you are unhappy with the way that we have handled your request, you can ask us to conduct a review.
End quote
We must extend to you why we are unhappy but Actually under Equality Legislation matters we are
Not unhappy
We just need the information
We are not supposed to engage in more than request for transparency but guidance is given and we are part of the United Kingdom where education delivery and cost implications for students apply
All those in Government, Public Service organisations will have taken some route in
Education
Not everyone will have been to PhD level
But funding education is vital
Not cutting it
Our request is about the longest time and that information is as important as all the information we requested
We did indeed inform you about other organisations handling of our requests because it is relevant
Quote
FOI response 2018
Our ref: xxxxx
Quote
However, the Equality Act 2010 also requires public authorities (for example the Scottish
Government, councils and so on) to consider the impact of all of their policies and practices
on groups who share the same protected characteristic. For example, a local authority
would need to consider all of the protected characteristics when putting in place a policy on,
say, access to leisure services etc etc
End quote
Quote
The ICO exists to empower you through information.
End quote
So please pass to the review person to respond
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/e...
Yours faithfully,
M Hands
Dear M Hands,
Thank you for your email. I conduct Internal Reviews for Imperial College.
I understand that you want to obtain information about the time it has taken Imperial College students to complete PhDs, as follows:
the number of PhD students who completed their courses after 36 months, 48 months and 72 months; and
the longest time it has taken for anyone to complete a PhD with the University
You have stated that the information is important but have not stated why it is important. As explained in our response to your request, public authorities are entitled to consider whether a request has a value or serious purpose that would justify the burden placed on the authority by having to generate the information requested. On the burden element, we asked you whether you wished to limit this aspect of your request by specifying a time period for the search. You chose not to do that. Even if you had limited the request by specifying a time-period, responding to your request would be burdensome to the College as we would have to divert staff from the tasks they are employed to deliver to interrogate our records for information that we have no need to compile for our own purposes.
There is no apparent value or purpose in the information requested. On the face of it, figures about how long students took to complete their PhD do not seem to have any relation to education funding, which you have referred to in your review request, nor to equality legislation, which you have also referred to.
You should note that there are fixed ‘milestones’ for postgraduate research which include: the Early Stage Assessment, Late Stage Review, Progress Review, Examination Entry and Thesis Submission. Progress against these milestones is regularly reviewed. Students are expected to submit within four years (or equivalent part-time). An extension application can be made in cases where mitigating circumstances have affected the progress towards the final submission deadline. In other words, unless there are exceptional circumstances, for example ill-health, a student would have to submit within four years (or equivalent part-time) and would not be awarded a PhD if they did not do so. Those students who took longer to submit would be those where an extension was granted to due to exceptional circumstances.
If you believe it is necessary for the public good for Imperial College to compile these figures and place them into the public domain, please explain why. I can then conduct a review of your request. There is no need to quote legislation, the Information Commissioner’s Office or anything else, just say in plain language why you think disclosure of this information is important and what use it would have.
Yours,
Anita Hunt
Access to Information Manager
Central Secretariat
Imperial College London
Dear IMPFOI,
Thank you for asking simply to clarify
You said
Quote
I understand that you want to obtain information about the time it has taken Imperial College students to complete PhDs, as follows:
the number of PhD students who completed their courses after 36 months, 48 months and 72 months; and
the longest time it has taken for anyone to complete a PhD with the University
End quote
You said
Quote
There is no need to quote legislation, the Information Commissioner’s Office or anything else, just say in plain language why you think disclosure of this information is important and what use it would have.
End quote
We say
Quote
The Freedom of Information Act says:
A public authority must comply with section 1(1) promptly and in any event not later than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt.
In our opinion, what matters most here is that the law says authorities must respond promptly.
End quote
We say again
Quote
Section 10 of FOIA sets out the timescales within which you must respond to a FOIA request.
These timescales apply where you have:
a duty under section 1(1)(a) to confirm or deny whether you hold the information;
a duty under section 1(1)(b) to provide information you hold to the requester;
a duty under section 17 to issue a refusal notice explaining why you have refused a request.
Section 10 specifies that you must comply promptly, and no later than 20 working days following the date of receipt of the request. The Information Commissioner interprets this to mean that ‘day 1’ is the first working day after the request has been received.
However, there is provision for you to claim a reasonable extension to this limit, up to an additional 20 working days, if you need more time to consider the public interest test.
Section 10 also allows you to apply variations to the normal 20-working-day timescale in some limited circumstances.
End quote
However in recognition that you are a university with guidelines as stated above which we are recognising as your response
What we actually do need is the longest time
Yours sincerely,
M Hands
Dear M Hands,
Imperial College replied to your Freedom of Information Act request (our reference IMPFOI-23-140) on Thursday 20 April. We refused to provide the information you had requested in reliance on Section 14 of the Act. You then asked us to conduct an Internal Review (on 3 May). We replied earlier today asking you to tell us on what basis you wish to challenge our response to your request. You have not done that. Instead, you appear to have refined your request to asking just the following: what is the longest time it has taken anyone to complete a PhD at Imperial College.
This is to acknowledge receipt of your revised request which the College will respond to on or before 5 June.
Yours,
Freedom of Information Team
Imperial College London
Dear M Hands,
Thank you for your Freedom of Information Act request. The longest time taken to complete a PhD at Imperial College was 38 years. As indicated in previous correspondence, any completion beyond four years (or equivalent for part-time) would be due to exceptional circumstances. Further Information about this award is in the public domain: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/37754/im...
Yours,
Freedom of Information Team
Imperial College London
Please note that if you are unhappy with the way that we have handled your request, you can ask us to conduct a review. Please make your representation in writing within 2 months of the date you received this response. If you remain dissatisfied with how Imperial College has handled your request, you may then approach the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Dear IMPFOI,
Thank you for your interest in providing an appropriate response whereby you allow for
Exceptional circumstances
You said
Quote
The longest time taken to complete a PhD at Imperial College was 38 years. As indicated in previous correspondence, any completion beyond four years (or equivalent for part-time) would be due to exceptional circumstances.
End quote
Yours sincerely,
M Hands
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