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Exempt Information under the Local Government Act 1972

We're waiting for Ellis Evans to read recent responses and update the status.

Dear Hackney Borough Council,

Question 1
Does your Council have a document (formal/informal guidance or policy) on when information deemed exempt under the local government act 1972 will no longer be exempt?

Question 2
I assume that when you bring items to Committee or full Council which are exempt from disclosure under the local government act 1972 you state this on the report. Do you provide guidance anywhere in the report or in a separate unrelated document as to when the information will (if at all) no longer be exempt from disclosure and be able to be accessed by members of the public?

Question 3
Do you have any similar guidance documents on when Members of the Council may be able to view documents which a Senior Officer in the Council has deemed they should not have access to?

Question 4
Has your Council received queries or formal requests for information from either members of the public or Members of the Council about access to information which has been deemed to be exempt from disclosure please? If so, what was the query and what was the Council's advice?

Yours faithfully,

Ellis Evans

hackney@infreemation.co.uk,

Dear Ellis Evans

We acknowledge receipt of your email to Hackney:

Freedom of Information request - Exempt Information under the Local
Government Act 1972

If you have submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) or the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), we will aim to
respond within the statutory timescale of 20 working days. If you have
submitted a Subject Access Request your request will be considered and you
will receive our response within the statutory timescale of one calendar
month.

The reference number for your email is FOI-4239.

Should you have any further inquiries concerning this matter, please reply
to this email leaving the subject line unchanged.

Yours sincerely,
Hackney Council

hackney@infreemation.co.uk,

Dear  Ellis Evans

 

Re: Freedom of Information Request.

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000, received 3 October 2019. Your request has been
considered and our response is in bold below.

 

Your request and the Council's response

Question 1
Does your Council have a document (formal/informal guidance or policy) on
when information deemed exempt under the local government act 1972 will no
longer be exempt?

The information requested is not held by the London Borough of Hackney, as
we do not hold such documents.

Question 2
I assume that when you bring items to Committee or full Council which are
exempt from disclosure under the local government act 1972 you state this
on the report. Do you provide guidance anywhere in the report or in a
separate unrelated document as to when the information will (if at all) no
longer be exempt from disclosure and be able to be accessed by members of
the public?

All Council agendas clearly state if there are reports with exempt
information. It also gives notice that members of the press and public
will be excluded from the meeting for those items.  We do not have a
guidance on un-exempting information.

 

Question 3
Do you have any similar guidance documents on when Members of the Council
may be able to view documents which a Senior Officer in the Council has
deemed they should not have access to?

Part 5 of the Council's Constitution contains the officer and member
protocol.  Paragraph 12 sets out the protocol for Member's access to
documents and information.  The Council's Constitution is published on the
Council's website.

Question 4
Has your Council received queries or formal requests for information from
either members of the public or Members of the Council about access to
information which has been deemed to be exempt from disclosure please? If
so, what was the query and what was the Council''s advice?

We can confirm that the Governance team has not received any such request.
Please also note that this request is very broad and to canvass all the
departments in the Council to determine if access to information has been
deemed exempt from disclosure, would exceed the appropriate limit under
the FOIA 2000.  

 

In order to answer your question, all the Service Areas  would need to
examine individual records (i.e. electronic or manual) across the Council.

The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004 has set the appropriate limit as £450 based on a
charge at £25 per hour. Section 12 of the Act states that the Council is
not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority
estimates that the costs of complying with the request would exceed the
appropriate limit.

The appropriate limit is represented by the estimated cost of one person
spending 2½ working days (or 18 hours) in determining whether the Council
holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the
information requested. Consequently the Council is not obliged to respond
to your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

If you were to limit your request for example, to a specific Service
Area, we may be able to respond to your request within the time limit.
However, we cannot guarantee that this would be the case.

 

Any reformulated request the department receives from you will be treated
as a new FOI enquiry. Please submit any new FOI requests to the
Information Management Team via our
webform [1]https://hackney.gov.uk/foi-request or to
[Hackney Borough Council request email].

 

Appeals & Complaints Procedure

If you are dissatisfied with this response and wish to appeal, please
write to the Information Management Team and this will be dealt with
through our Internal Review procedure.

Information Management Team - Governance

London Borough of Hackney

Hackney Service Centre

1 Hillman Street

London E8 1DY

[2][Hackney Borough Council request email]

 

Your request for an internal review should be submitted to us within 40
working days of receipt by you of this response. Any such request received
after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the Council.

 

If you are still not satisfied following the Internal Review, you have a
right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at the contact details
provided below.

 

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF 

Telephone: 01625 545 700

[3]www.ico.org.uk

 

Yours sincerely

 

Information Management Team

ICT Services
London Borough of Hackney 

References

Visible links
1. https://hackney.gov.uk/foi-request
2. mailto:[Hackney Borough Council request email]
3. http://www.ico.cgov.uk/

We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Ellis Evans please sign in and let everyone know.