Dear Post Office Limited,

The Post Office has a Grant Funding agreement with a company known as National Federation of Sub Postmasters Ltd Co number 9771284.
I have a number of requests for information relating to this agreement.

1 In this grant funding agreement at clause 4.5 NFSP Ltd are required to submit an Annual Plan 30 days prior to each commencement of the financial year. Would you please supply me with a copy of this annual plan for the year 2020 to 2021.

2 Would you also supply me with the number of members of the company limited by guarantee National Federation of Sub Postmasters Co number 9771284 that your grant provides membership fees for.
Would you also confirm that you have taken all reasonable steps to confirm that these members have entered into company membership of the National Federation of Sub Postmasters Limited in accordance with the Company Act 2006 Part 2 sec 11.

3 At Clause 9 of the Grant Funding Agreement between Post Office and the National Federation of Sub Postmasters Ltd would you please supply me with the details of the Approved Project for the year 2020-2021 to include the total amount of the award for this project.

4 At Clause 13 (Monitoring and Reporting) of the Grant Funding Agreement between Post Office and the National Federation of Sub Postmasters Ltd would you please supply me with a copy of all the required reports detailed in Clause 13 paras 13.1 to 13.6 for the year 2020-2021.

5 At Clause 15 of the Grant Funding Agreement between the Post Office and the National Federation of Sub Postmasters Ltd an annual review is required to be held 3 months prior to the end of each financial year. Would you please supply me details, outcomes and minutes for the review held prior to the commencement of the forthcoming financial year 2021-2022.

6 At Schedule 2 ( Grant Committee) of the Grant Funding Agreement between the Post Office and the National Federation of Sub Postmasters Ltd para 13 of Schedule 2 requires minutes to be kept by the Grant Committee.
Would you supply me with a copy of all these minutes since the Grant was first made.

Yours faithfully,

Andrea West

Dear Information Rights Team,

Good morning,

I am sure you are fully aware a response was by law due yesterday, i await your response

Yours sincerely,

Andrea west

Dear Jackie Lawrence,

Thank you for your reply of the 21st April 2021.
If you thought my request was covered by an exemption why have you left it to the last day possible to inform me of that fact?

You have not stated which part of Sec 43 you are claiming an exemption under. Is it 43 (1) 43 (2) 43 (3) ?
I am assuming it is Sec 43 (2). As the others concern Trade Secrets and we are not talking about releasing information concerning a Trade Secret.

Sec43 (2) concerns information likely to prejudice a commercial interest. The ICO define a Commercial Interest as a legal persons ability to participate competitively in a commercial activity.
Prejudice means disclosure of such information would cause harm to someones commercial interests.

My request was in 6 parts. None of these 6 parts involve a commercial interest as defined by the ICO guidance. I have asked for information relating to a publicly available Grant Funding Agreement involving the conditions of a Public Authority Grant.
The Grant was never put out to tender and therefore there is no other commercial entity that would gain an advantage by having knowledge gained by the answers to my requests for information .
Nor could any commercial harm come to the NFSP by the revealing of the information I have asked for.

I believe you are mistaken in claiming a Section 43 exemption and I would like the information I have requested without delay or I will complain immediately to the Information Commissioner.
This is not the first time your organisation has been referred to the ICO on this subject of the NFSP Grant by trying to claim invalid exemptions

Yours sincerely,

Andrea west

Dear Post Office Limited,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Post Office Limited's handling of my FOI request 'Grant Funding Agreement with the NFSP'.

On two occassions now you have waited until the last moment to delay responding to this request, please redact any 3rd party names and respond to this request as a matter of the utmost urgency.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/g...

Yours faithfully,

Andrea West

Dear Information Rights Team,

Sadly any assurance from Post Office Ltd is pointless due to a sad history of delaying, misleading and with holding information i would just like the Post Office to comply with the laws of the land. This request has been delayed twice so hopefully it will be third time lucky for a full response

Yours sincerely,

andrea west

Dear information rights Manager,

Thank you for your responses. I would like to seek clarification of one of the answers you made. In replying to my question 2.
You have stated that you do not know how many members of the NFSP Ltd your grant provides membership fees for. Yet you go on to state that your grant is a fixed sum paid on the basis that at least 50% of Postmasters are members of NFSP Ltd.

That answer conflicts with the answer you gave to the first part of that question when you stated you do not know how many Postmasters are members of NFSP Ltd.

It follows that if you require at least 50% of all Postmasters to be members of NFSP Ltd then you must know how many Postmasters are company members of NFSP Ltd, (members being as defined by Part 2 Sec 11 of the companies act 2006.)

Would you clarify please whether or not you know how many Postmasters are company members of NFSP Ltd.
If you do not hold that information would you then clarify how you are able to confirm that at least 50% of Postmasters are in fact company members of NFSP Ltd in order to be satisfied that the Grant is payable to NFSP Ltd?

Yours sincerely,

Andrea West

Dear information.rights,

Still await a response to this long overdue request

Yours sincerely,

Andrea West

Dear information.rights,

Would it just be easier to complain to the information Commissioner regarding this request as you seem to have no interest in complying with the law regarding FOIR.

Yours sincerely,

Andrea West

Dear David

Thank you for your reply. Unfortuntaly your reply does not provide the clarification to question 2.

NFSP Ltd is a company limited by guarantee. As such it will only have members that have subscribed to the company articles of association and have provided a guarantee.

That can be the only definition of a member of NFSP Ltd.

Therefore in order for the Post Office to satisfy its own stipulation that the NFSP Ltd must have not less than 50% of each contract type of Postmaster under its company membership, in order to qualify for the grant its receives, it follows that the Post Office must know (and record) the numbers of NFSP Ltd company members that sit within each of the contract types. It is these figures I asked you to supply along with your assurance that you have ascertained that the figures the NFSP Ltd supply you with are properly signed up NFSP Company members.

Yours sincerely,

andrea west

Dear David

Thank you for your reply on the 23rd July 2021.

The Grant Funding Agreement defines a member in the way I have asserted at Section 4 para 4.3 of the Grant Funding Agreement I have copied the relevant section below.
4.3 From 1 April 2016, the NFSP shall provide free membership of the NFSP to all Post Office Operators. The NFSP acknowledges that, notwithstanding this offer of free membership, a Post Office Operator has the right to refuse to accept membership of the NFSP and the NFSP agrees to accept any refusal by a Post Office Operator to accept this membership offer.

This definition is also confirmed at Section 8 of NFSP Ltd Articles of Association.

Given that the Post Office required the preceding unincorporated association and former Trade Union known as the NFSP to incorporate, which it did in October 2015, then there can only be one definition of a member of NFSP Ltd because it became a company limited by guarantee.
As you know to become a member (or subscriber) to any company limited by guarantee the individual has to apply for and be accepted into company membership and more importantly sign a letter of guarantee and pledge a sum of £1 this being the limited of the individual members liability. This guarantee has to be held in the Company register.
For the avoidance of doubt the use of NFSP and NFSP Ltd refers to the same entity.

There can be no alternative definition or understanding of what a member of NFSP Ltd is by yourselves so I am perplexed as to why we are having this dialogue.
You must know and record how many members as defined in the Grant Funding Agreement and in the Articles of NFSP Ltd there are within each of the various Postmaster contract types. Because you made this a stipulation of paying the grant.

If you have a different understanding of what a member of NFSP Ltd is then I would be extremely interested to know what your definition is.

Yours sincerely,

Andrea West

Dear David

Thank you for your reply on the 23rd July 2021.

The Grant Funding Agreement defines a member in the way I have asserted at Section 4 para 4.3 of the Grant Funding Agreement I have copied the relevant section below.
4.3 From 1 April 2016, the NFSP shall provide free membership of the NFSP to all Post Office Operators. The NFSP acknowledges that, notwithstanding this offer of free membership, a Post Office Operator has the right to refuse to accept membership of the NFSP and the NFSP agrees to accept any refusal by a Post Office Operator to accept this membership offer.

This definition is also confirmed at Section 8 of NFSP Ltd Articles of Association.

Given that the Post Office required the preceding unincorporated association and former Trade Union known as the NFSP to incorporate, which it did in October 2015, then there can only be one definition of a member of NFSP Ltd because it became a company limited by guarantee.
As you know to become a member (or subscriber) to any company limited by guarantee the individual has to apply for and be accepted into company membership and more importantly sign a letter of guarantee and pledge a sum of £1 this being the limited of the individual members liability. This guarantee has to be held in the Company register.
For the avoidance of doubt the use of NFSP and NFSP Ltd refers to the same entity.

There can be no alternative definition or understanding of what a member of NFSP Ltd is by yourselves so I am perplexed as to why we are having this dialogue.
You must know and record how many members as defined in the Grant Funding Agreement and in the Articles of NFSP Ltd there are within each of the various Postmaster contract types. Because you made this a stipulation of paying the grant.

If you have a different understanding of what a member of NFSP Ltd is then I would be extremely interested to know what your definition is.

Yours sincerely

Andrea West

David,

Yet again i am chasing you to comply with the laws of the land, it is clear that POL have delayed this request far beyond what is permitted so would it be easier to refer this request to the ICO

Yours sincerely,

andrea west

Dear Kirsty

Thank you for your reply. You have clarified your understanding of what a NFSP member must be, you have also clarified that you believe the NFSP Ltd has 8000 such registered company members. Even though you have taken this figure on trust from NFSP Ltd. You do not know exactly how many company members NFSP Ltd actually has and you have never checked because and I quote "It is not Post Office’s role or responsibility to confirm
that all the members have been entered into the company membership.”

I find this an extraordinary approach to take given the size of the grant especially when you consider that this is tax payers funding because the Government are having to assist the Post Office to meet its liabilities as technically the Post Office is insolvent. If I may say so your stewardship of the grant funding in this regard is rather irresponsible and cavalier.

It is up to the Post Office but, speaking as a tax payer, I would have thought you would have asked the NFSP Ltd to supply you with a copy of these 8000 company letters of guarantee that the members have to sign “personally”
It's what a responsible organisation that controls tax payers money would do or even its own company money. May I suggest you take a look at the current number of letters of guarantee to verify they exist.
I very much doubt NFSP Ltd has 8000 company members or indeed any because at the time they signed the funding agreement a Mr Beal from the Post Office wrote to all Postmasters to inform them “he” had auto enrolled all Postmasters into NFSP Ltd company membership. That is not possible, it's also illegal.

I believe this request has now come to an end, it took some time but thank you for clearing matters up in the end.

Yours sincerely,

Andrea West