Information released under FOIA or EIRs but not published on DfT website
Dear Department for Transport,
I note many requests for information submitted via the whatdotheyknow.com website have resulted in the publication of information. Some, but seemingly a minority, of these requests and the resulting released information have been published on your own web site.
I assume that there are further responses resulting from enquiries submitted directly and sent only to the requestor that may not have been published on your website.
Please send me the policy document setting out the criteria that determines which responses are selected for publication on your website.
Please also provide a copy of all the information released by the DfT during August, September and October 2012, that was requested under the terms of the FOIA or the EIRs and that has not been published in the DfT website database at this URL .
I would be pleased to receive this information in electronic format (PDF or Microsoft office). If the file is large please render it downloadable from your website. Alternatively, you may wish to publish the requested information in your existing website database and provide me with the relevant links to each request.
Yours faithfully,
Paul Thornton
Dear Mr Thornton
Freedom of Information Request F0009460
I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your request for information which has been allocated the above reference number. A response will be issued to you in due course.
Regards,
Department for Transport
Information Rights & Records Unit
D/01, Ashdown House
Sedlescombe Road North
St Leonards on Sea
East Sussex
TN37 7GA
Dear Mr Thornton,
Please see attached response to your request.
Kind regards
C Taylor
Information Rights & Records Unit | Zone D/01 | Ashdown House |
Sedlescombe Rd North | St Leonards on Sea | East Sussex | TN37 7GA
Dear FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT,
Thankyou for providing the information requested in respect of my question 1.
I am reassured that the document you have provided is being revised. The guidance from the ICO at the link below may be of assistance.
http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/...
I am writing to request a review of your refusal to provide the information requested under question 2. Your suggestion that the information is not described is, frankly, spurious. The terms of my request are entirely specific such that you are able to identify and locate the requested information.
The guidance at the links that you have provided in your reply suggests that you perceive the enquiry as being in some way irresponsible or vexatious. I do not understand how or why you might have any grounds for such an implication and I look forward to an early apology in that regard.
In the terms of your reply, I can readily relate my request "to a definite context such as a particular policy or region or a notable event or initiative." Indeed it is clear from the context of my original enquiry that I am seeking clarity with regard to your compliance with the FOIA and the EIRs. At the same time I am seeking clarification of those information requests to which you have responded but which you and your colleagues seek to withold from wider dissemination on an undefined but self determined ground of "public interest".
I look forward to your confirmation that you are proceeding this matter without further delay.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Paul Thornton
Dear Dr Thornton
Please find attached the Department's response to your request for an Internal Review into the handling of your recent information request.
Yours sincerely
FOI Advice Team
Department for Transport
Dear FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT,
Thank you for sending this letter from Mr Carty.
I note the complimentary comments made by the Information Commissioner's office (ICO) in respect of the DfT some 3 years ago, as compared to the standard achieved by the other central government departments at that time. I note that the departmental database in respect of which my initial enquiry was made has now been migrated to the multi departmental website.
The quotation from the ICO report that Mr Carty selected was as follows. "Department for Transport operate a well organised disclosure log which is fully retrospective with links to requests, responses and supporting documents".
It is clear however from Mr Carty’s response to my request that either the information commissioner was allowed to persist in a misunderstanding or the modus operandum for your website database of FOIA responses has been changed in the intervening period.
Mr Carty has now acknowledged that the disclosure log is not "fully retrospective". It is substantially incomplete. Given the paucity of material published in the FOI section of the website it is unsurprising that it generated a tiny proportion of the traffic for the DfT website.
Mr Carty confirmed in his response that "143 requests were responded to by the central department during the three month period between August and October 2012 which were relevant, i.e. some information was disclosed in our responses to these cases." The new web site now reveals 16 logged FOIA responses and no EIR responses in the same sample 3 month period of my enquiry. The disclosure log is substantially unrepresentative and no longer fulfills the publication expectation in the guidance from the Information Commissioners office.
Against that background, and to perhaps to avoid wasting the time of the Information Commissioner’s office further, I am writing to provide you with a further opportunity to publish the information that I have requested. This was clearly defined and you have been able to locate it. As such, by definition, neither FOIA Section 8(1)(c) nor EIR regulation 12(4)(c) can be engaged.
You will appreciate that at the time I submitted my request, I had no way of knowing the extent to which the department was withholding information. The claimed cost of publishing the information I have requested is in direct proportion to the extent that you have withheld information previously and it is therefore invidious that you should invoke the clause imposing the £600 cost ceiling. If you persist in that view, I shall have to be content for you to provide only that information from within the requested information that relates firstly to rail transport and then secondly to air transport up to the £600 maximum cost allowed.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Thornton
Dear Mr Thornton,
I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your further correspondence of 15
January, in response to the Internal Review carried out by Mr Carty.
The Department remains of the view that your original request dated 12
November 2012 was not a valid request for information, for the reasons set
out in Mr Carty’s Internal Review.
We have therefore interpreted your most recent correspondence as a new
request for information relating to (i) rail and (ii) aviation that was
released by the DfT during August, September and October 2012 in response
to FOI or EIR requests, where that released information has not been
published on the DfT website.
The case reference number is F0009696. A response will be issued to you in
due course.
In your response to Mr Carty, you state that the Department was
withholding information. This is not the case. Information has already
been released in response to FOI and EIR requests. Not all of the released
information has been published on the Department’s disclosure log, but the
FOI Act does not require public authorities to publish each and every
individual response in this way.
Regards,
C Taylor
Information Rights and Records Unit
Dear Mr Thornton,
Please see attached letter and associated annexes in relation to your recent request. Please note, due to the size of the documents the information is being sent in several emails.
Kind regards
C Taylor
Information Right and records Unit
Department for Transport
Dear Mr Thornton,
Please see attached further documents that are in scope of your request.
Please accept my apologies that they were not included with the previous
attachments.
Kind regards
C Taylor
Dear Mr Thornton,
Please see attached further documents that are in scope of your request.
Please accept my apologies that they were not included with the previous
attachments.
Kind regards
C Taylor
Dear Mr Thornton,
Please see attached further documents that are in scope of your request.
Please accept my apologies that they were not included with the previous
attachments.
Kind regards
C Taylor
Dear FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT,
Thankyou for this further update.
Unfortunately while the final file Annex B2 1.pdf appears to download satisfactorily it will not open giving the error message "File corrupted and cannot be repaired". Please could you re-upload it to the whatdotheyknow site.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Thornton
Dear Mr Thornton,
Please see attached further documents that are in scope of your request.
Please accept my apologies that they were not included with the previous
attachments.
Kind regards
C Taylor
Dear FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT,
Thankyou for resubmitting this email but again I am afraid it cannot be opened, again being described as corrupted.
i suspect that it may be too large a file to send by email as a single attachment. Please can you split it.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Thornton
Dear Mr Thornton,
Apologies if you are still unable to open the files from the website, I did check the site and was able to view the document both as a HTML and download the file. I have, as requested spilt the document and attach it to this email.
Kind regards
C Taylor
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