Chief Executive Diane Whittingham emailed directly on 07/11/10 as follows...

Dear Ms Whittingham,

I appreciate that you are very busy and am sorry to contact you about quite a small matter, but I am at a loss to know who else to contact in order to get a response to my FOI request which was made on 15th August and is now well past the statutory response time.

Although I have had several out of office messages from your staff, I have yet to receive a reply.

I contacted a total 227 NHS Trusts with the same question in August and September this year - and your Trust is the only one that has not provided the information.

You can find the email trail for the correspondence here
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fo...

You can also see that your Trust has one of the worst records for complying with FOI requests via the WDTK website (5 out of 13 requests are overdue) for NHS Trusts in the UK by clicking on your Trust profile here:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/east_...

I know that I could refer the matter to the information commissioner, but I really do not want to do this t all. All I want is a simple piece of information to complete the data set.

I would be very grateful for any assistance you can give with this matter and thank you in advance for your help.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Christian

Complaint made to the Information Commissioner on 09.11.10 and ELHT informed on 10.11.10.

_________________________________________
Further to my earlier emails, this is to confirm that I have, with regret, now reported you to the Information Commissioner for breach of the FOI regulations.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fo...

Yours faithfully,

Robert Christian

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: acknowledgement@ico.gsi.gov.uk
To: robert.christian@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2010 21:35:52 +0000
Subject: We have received your email

Thank you for emailing the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). This is an automated acknowledgement; please do not reply to this email.

If your email was a reply to an email we sent you it has now been attached to your case and will be read when your correspondence is allocated to a case officer.

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Yours sincerely

Customer Contact Department
The Information Commissioner’s Office

Notified ELHT that complaint had been made to Information Commissioner on 10.11.10 and received following...

__________________

Out of Office: Confirmation of complaint to Information Commissioner‏
10/11/2010
Murphy Frances (ELHT) Executive Team Murphy Frances (ELHT) Executive Team
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View detailsTo Robert Christian
From: Murphy Frances (ELHT) Executive Team
Sent: 10 November 2010 21:22:26

I am out of the office until 11th November and will return your email as soon as possible. Regards

Email sent to ELHT head of communications, CC Northwest SHA. 30.11.10
____________

Dear Mr Thomasson,

I've almost completed a study of NHS spend on chaplaincy and every single English provider NHS Trust has complied with its FOI obligations - except East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust.

Despite numerous emails, and even posting a paper copy of the FOI request to Frances Murphy (in case there was a problem with your email filters), ELHT has not responded and the Information Commissioner is now investigating your Trust for its breach of the FOI regulations.

You can read the whole email trail (which goes back to August) here. You will see that Ms Murphy hardly ever seems to be in the office and when she is FOI doesn't seem to get any attention.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fo...

When the study is ready for publication I will be highlighting your Trust's unique position in the NHS and I wonder whether you would like to provide a quotation for the press release?

I have copied in the SHA as I would welcome a quotation from their perspective too, particularly their view on the Information Commissioner's investigation, and whether your Trust's apparent inability to meet the most basic legal obligations is indicative of your wider governance or patient care arrangements.

Of course I would much prefer just to have a response to the original FOI enquiry, however, I am working to a deadline and so would need to hear back from you one way or the other by close of play on Monday 6th December.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can give.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Christian

Added 23.01.11

Following intervention by the Information Commissioner, Frances Murphy, FOI lead at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust finally released the requested information with no explanation or apology for the delay.

The figures they quoted for 2009/10 are as follows (spend):

Pay=£88,025
Non-pay=£78,388