Dear Sir/Madam,

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION - FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 / ENVIRONMENTAL
INFORMATION REGULATIONS 2004

Thank you for your email requesting information from Wakefield Council. 

Please note, responses may take longer than usual due to the current
Coronavirus situation.

Your request will now be validated and logged for processing.  For your
request to be valid under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act it will
need to include your full name and describe the information you are
requesting clearly, we will write to you to seek clarification should this
be required.  It is our intention to have the response delivered to you
within 20 working days from the working day your request is received. 
Please note, requests received on non-working days, such as weekends and
bank holidays, will be recorded as being received on the next working
day. 

All requests submitted under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 may be
subject to exemptions, which the Authority is entitled to apply to refuse
requests in full or parts of requests.  Further information around the
exemptions that may be applied can be found via the following link: 
[1]https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui....

In some situations the decision to withhold information, or not, will be
based on a public interest test.  You will be advised of the
considerations and decisions as well as your rights of appeal within your
response. 

Requests submitted under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR)
2004 may be subject to exceptions, which the Authority is entitled to
apply to refuse requests in full or parts of requests.  Further
information around the exceptions that may be applied can be found via the
following link: 
[2]https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui....

Please note, you do not have to specify whether you are making your
request under the FOI Act or under EIR.  The officer dealing with your
request will ensure it is processed under the relevant legislation during
the validation process. 

If you are requesting information in relation to a deceased person and
have not yet provided the required proof of eligibility and identity, your
request will not be processed until we received these.  Please provide one
of the following to confirm your eligibility to access the records:

·         Grant of probate and certified copy of the last will & testament

·         Letters of administration (if the deceased died intestate)

We will also require proof of your identity if you are requesting a
deceased persons records.  If you have not done so already, please provide
one of the following as proof of your identity:

·         Valid UK Driving Licence

·         Valid Current UK Passport

·         Birth certificate OR Certificate of Registry of Birth OR
Adoption certificate

Wakefield Council publish a number of Data Sets in relation to different
topics.  You may wish to access the following links to check whether the
information you require is already published.

Data Mill North

[3]https://datamillnorth.org/publisher/wake...

Any queries or concerns in relation to this matter should be sent to the
Senior Information Governance Officer, Information Management Team, County
Hall, Wakefield WF1 2QW or e-mailed to
[4][Wakefield City Council request email].

Yours sincerely

Corporate Information Governance Team,

Legal Services

Wakefield Council, County Hall, Wakefield WF1 2QW

Email: [5][Wakefield City Council request email]  

Tel: 01924 306112

References

Visible links
1. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...
2. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...
3. https://datamillnorth.org/publisher/wake...
4. mailto:[Wakefield City Council request email]
5. mailto:[Wakefield City Council request email]

Dear Ms Berti,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION 

Thank you for your email requesting information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 which we received on 25 July 2022.  It is our
intention to have the response delivered to you no later than 22 August
2022.

I would like to inform you that all requests submitted under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 might be subject to exemption(s), which the
Authority is entitled to apply to refuse the request.

Any future correspondence you may have in relation to this matter should
be marked Private & Confidential and sent to the Senior Information
Governance Officer, Information Management Team, County Hall, Wakefield
WF1 2QW or e-mailed to [1][Wakefield City Council request email].

Yours sincerely,

Information Governance Officer

Corporate Information Governance Team,

Legal and Governance,

Wakefield Council, County Hall, Wakefield WF1 2QW

Email: [2][Wakefield City Council request email]

Tel: 01924 306112

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Dear Ms Berti,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Request for Information

I am writing in respect of your recent enquiry for information held by the
Authority under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

Please find the response to your request below.

Q. 1. i.) Please state the local authority’s expenditure (including use of
Government grants) on clearing the arrears of tenants in the following
financial years.

a. 2017/2018

b. 2018/2019

c. 2019/2020

d. 2020/2021

e. 2021/2022

Please note that Wakefield Council transferred all its housing stock to
Wakefield District Housing(WDH)  in 2005, therefore we do not hold the
information requested.

Please find contact details for WDH below:

Wakefield District Housing

Head Office - Merefield House,
Whistler Drive,
Castleford,
West Yorkshire,
WF10 5HX

OneCALL 0345 8 507 507

[1]https://www.wdh.co.uk/ContactUs/

ii.) For each of the above years, please provide a breakdown of
expenditure on clearing the arrears of council housing tenants, housing
association tenants and private rental sector tenants.

N/A.

Q. 2. i.) Please state the local authority’s expenditure (including use of
Government grants) on discretionary housing payments to assist ongoing
renting costs of tenants in the following years.

a. 2017/2018

b. 2018/2019

c. 2019/2020

d. 2020/2021

e. 2021/2022

Please see the table below. As advised, we can only provide a response to
Question 2 which relates to Discretionary Housing Payments,  so the table
answers both i and ii.

ii.) For each of the above years, please provide a breakdown of
expenditure on assisting the ongoing renting costs of council housing
tenants, housing association tenants and private rental sector tenants.

HOUSING ASSOCIATION PRIVATE RENTAL SECTOR TOTAL SPEND
2017 / 2018 £679,227.52 £382,312.48 £1,061,540.00
2018 / 2019 £627,915.00 £369,587.00 £997,502.00
2019 / 2020 £530,587.58 £306,572.42 £837,160.00
2020 / 2021 £687,282.38 £291,675.62 £978,958.00
2021 / 2022 £547,539.00 £216,510.00 £764,049.00

NB. As noted in the response to Question 1, above, we do not have council
housing tenants, so the breakdown of expenditure is for Housing
Association tenants and private rental sector tenants only.

I trust that this information is satisfactory for your purposes.

Yours sincerely

Senior Information Governance Officer

Information Governance Team

Legal and Governance

Wakefield Council

Tel: 01924 306112

E-mail: [2][Wakefield City Council request email]

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Dear Ms Berti,

I will refer your query back to the colleagues who provided me with the
information that formed the basis of my original disclosure, and will
respond to you as soon as I can.

I regret that we cannot confirm what data may be held by Wakefield
District Housing, as they are an external organisation, and under the Act
we can only consider information which is held by Wakefield Council.

Yours sincerely

Senior Information Governance Officer

Information Governance Team, Legal and Governance,

Wakefield Council, County Hall, Wakefield, WF1 2QW

E-mail: [email address]

Tel: 01924 306112

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Dear Ms Berti,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Request for Information

I am writing further to our recent correspondence in respect of your
enquiry for information held by the Authority under the provisions of the
Freedom of Information Act, specifically the query you raised concerning
my response to question 1.

I referred the matter back to the colleague in the Revenues & Benefits
department who had supplied me with the original data, as it appears that
your question was initially misinterpreted, for which we apologise
sincerely. We can now confirm the following information;

With regard to what information is recorded in terms of Discretionary
Housing Payment (DHP) expenditure and which is specified by the Government
for management information purposes, there is no requirement to record “to
clear off rent arrears” as the intended outcome of a DHP award. The
outcomes are broadly grouped into the areas that cover the policy
intention of DHPs, outlined below:

•           To help secure and move to alternative accommodation

•           To help with short term rental costs while the claimant
secures and moves to alternative accommodation

•           To help with short term rental costs while the claimant seeks
employment

•           To help with repeated rental costs for disabled person in
adapted accommodation

•           To help with repeated rental costs for a foster carer

•           To help with repeated rental costs for any other reason

As part of the decision-making, rent arrears may be cleared / reduced,
however the reason for the award would be assigned to one of the above
categories covering the intended outcome (i.e. of the award).

In order to collate any information regarding rent arrears, we would need
to access each record of an award made in order to check the notes. This
would take on average 5 minutes to access and note down if rent arrears
have been recorded. The number of awards for each year is listed below:

•           2017/18 – 1754

•           2018/19 – 1872

•           2019/20 – 1772

•           2020/21 – 1868

•           2021/22 – 1583

Under the Act (Section 12) the Authority has the right to refuse to
release the information where it is reasonably estimated that the cost of
complying with a request would exceed £450 (calculated on the basis of 18
hours @ £25 per hour).  On this occasion we have estimated (please see the
above paragraphs) that the cost of determining whether we hold the
requested information and locating, retrieving and extracting it would
exceed £450.  The Authority has therefore decided to refuse this aspect of
your request.

As noted above, the data you are asking for in relation to question 1 is
not held by the Council in a central record, and in order for us to obtain
the information, a manual check would need to be made of the individual
records. As advised, we estimate that this would take approximately 5
minutes for each record. This would therefore take approximately 132 hours
to undertake for 2021/22 alone. Even if the search were to take only a
minute, the Section 12 limit would be exceeded.

I trust that this answers your query.

If, however, you are not satisfied with the way that the Authority has
handled your request, you may ask for an internal review. Please contact
me either in writing: Senior Information Governance Officer Corporate
Information Governance Team, County Hall, Wakefield, West Yorkshire WF1
2QW (marked Private & Confidential) or e-mail on
[Wakefield City Council request email] and I will arrange an internal
review of your case.

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

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely

Senior Information Governance Officer

Information Governance Team

Legal and Governance

Wakefield Council

Tel: 01924 306112

E-mail: [1][Wakefield City Council request email]

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