Library statistics 2021

The request was successful.

Dear Rutland County Council,

FAO The Library Service.

Hello, I have two freedom of information (FOI) queries that should be quick. This is being sent to all UK library services so be assured you aren't being singled out! If the operating of the library service has been outsourced to a separate organisation then please fulfil this request by retrieving the response from that body.

1. Does the library service complete annual library statistics to be sent to CIPFA? And specifically, have these been completed for the financial year 2020/2021?

2. If the answer to the above is Yes, please include a copy of your 2020/2021 CIPFA library statistics return in your response. This should be sent in the same format as was sent to CIPFA (e.g. an Excel spreadsheet).

It is important that this should be an exact copy of the data sent to CIPFA. I am not requesting any data that is owned by CIPFA, such as their own aggregated reports. As the data is compiled by the library service it is public library data, and subject to Freedom of Information.

To try and cover any concerns about the second part of this request, I have answered a number of potential worries below. Please have a quick look through these before responding!

- Data Format. The data should be sent as structured data in spreadsheet format. Guidelines from the Information Commissioner's Office specify that it is reasonable to request data in a re-usable and "Machine-readable" formats. For example, if the data were exported to a PDF file then that would not be acceptable, as that is a document rather than structured data.

- FOI exemption: accessible by other means. Occasionally, requesters in the past have been told that this data could be exempt from FOI as it accessible from CIPFA when it is published. However this fails the test of being 'reasonably' accessible due to the high cost for a member of the public. This exemption would certainly be overturned on appeal.

- FOI exemption: commercial interest. Commercial interest exemptions do exist in FOI legislation but this would not apply to a single third party (e.g. CIPFA) who use public data. Their commercial interests are in the value they provide in reporting on that data.

Thank you in advance!

Yours faithfully,

Dave Rowe

FOI, Rutland County Council

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for contacting Rutland County Council to request information
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 / Environmental Information
Regulations 2004.

Your request has been allocated the above reference number therefore
please quote this on any future correspondence which relates to this
matter.

We will respond to your request within 20 working days. If for any reason
we are unable to provide the information you have requested, we will
advise you why.

Yours faithfully

Freedom of Information
Rutland County Council
Catmose, Oakham, Rutland, LE15 6HP
t: 01572 722577 | e: [1][email address]

Details regarding your data protection rights and how the Council
processes your data can be found at:
[2]www.rutland.gov.uk/my-council/data-protection

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FOI, Rutland County Council

1 Attachment

Dear Sir/Madam

Please find attached the response from Rutland County Council.

Regards

Freedom of Information
Rutland County Council
Catmose, Oakham, Rutland, LE15 6HP
t: 01572 722577 | e: [1][email address]

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Dear Rutland County Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Rutland County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Library statistics 2021'.

You have refused on the basis that this information will be published at a future data by CIPFA. That is information that is exclusively available to commercial subscribers, certainly beyond the means of any member of the public.

I think this is also a fundamental misunderstanding of what is being requested. The commercially available information is CIPFAs "added value data analysis" of a set of UK library services. I am not requesting that. From you I am directly requesting the underlying data that is submitted to CIPFA by your library service only. There is no market value equivalent unless you yourselves have examples of how much you sell that data for. I am requesting something clearly different to the commercial product available from CIPFA.

Yours faithfully,

Dave Rowe

FOI, Rutland County Council

Dear Mr Rowe,

Thank you for contacting Rutland County Council to request an Internal
Review into the response you received on 30th September 2021 to your
Freedom of Information request.

Your request will be fully investigated and you will received a response
as soon that this is complete. The reference number remains 1075/21,
please quote this on any future correspondence which relates to this
matter.

We will respond to your request within 20 working days. If for any reason
we are unable to provide the information you have requested, we will
advise you why.

Yours sincerely

Dave

Dave Cousens| Information Governance Coordinator
Rutland County Council
Catmose, Oakham, Rutland LE15 6HP
t: 01572 758 265 (Ext 8265) | e: [1][email address]
[2]www.rutland.gov.uk

Details regarding your data protection rights and how the Council
processes your data can be found at:
[3]www.rutland.gov.uk/my-council/data-protection

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FOI, Rutland County Council

3 Attachments

Dear Mr Rowe,

Please find attached the response to the Internal Review into your FOI
request.

Regards

Dave

Dave Cousens| Information Governance Coordinator
Rutland County Council
Catmose, Oakham, Rutland LE15 6HP
t: 01572 758 265 (Ext 8265) | e: [1][email address]
[2]www.rutland.gov.uk

Details regarding your data protection rights and how the Council
processes your data can be found at:
[3]www.rutland.gov.uk/my-council/data-protection

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Dear FOI,

Thanks for this, and the review decision.

Just one final thing. I notice, probably as an oversight that you have attached the agreed data as a PDF file.

As mentioned in the original request, and in line with FOI guidelines, this data needs to be sent in a computer readable format (i.e. the original spreadsheet).

Could you send that over instead of the exported document please?

Yours sincerely,

Dave Rowe

FOI, Rutland County Council

1 Attachment

  • This attachment has been hidden. There are various reasons why we might have done this, sorry we can't be more specific here. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Afternoon Mr Rowe,

Please find attached the original spreadsheet as requested.

Regards

Dave

Dave Cousens| Information Governance Coordinator
Rutland County Council
Catmose, Oakham, Rutland LE15 6HP
t: 01572 758 265 (Ext 8265) | e: [1][email address]
[2]www.rutland.gov.uk

Details regarding your data protection rights and how the Council
processes your data can be found at:
[3]www.rutland.gov.uk/my-council/data-protection

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Dear FOI,

Thanks! Appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Rowe