Dear Mr Rowe

Your request for information ref: SOT-105837

Thank you for your request for information about the council's library
service.  Your request was received by the Information Rights Team on 16
September 2021.  This is being dealt with under the terms of the
appropriate Information Rights legislation.

In some circumstances we may charge for information.  If there is a charge
we will let you know, as you will be required to pay this before we deal
with your request.

Some information does not have to be released under this legislation.  We
will check the information you have asked for and send you as much as
possible.  If another person or organisation is named in the information,
we may have to ask their opinion before we decide what we can give you.

You should expect to receive a response to your request on or before 14
October 2021 in line with the legislation's 20 working day statutory
deadline.

For your information we may publish the response to your request on our
City Council's website, which can be found at the following address:
[1]www.stoke.gov.uk.

If you have any queries about this email please do not hesitate to contact
us.

You can find details of how we handle your personal information by
visiting [2]www.stoke.gov.uk/dataprotection

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Team

Information Rights

Floor 2 Civic Centre Glebe Street

Stoke-on-Trent ST4 1HH

City of Stoke-on-Trent 

t 01782 232853, 01782 233020, 01782 233732, 01782 235965

e [3][Stoke on Trent City Council request email]

Winner – UK Housing Awards Council of the Year 2019

Stoke-on-Trent City Council is a Fostering Friendly employer. Being a
foster carer is truly life changing. If you have a spare room and spare
time, even as little as one weekend a month, you can make a real
difference to a child’s life. Fostering for Stoke-on-Trent City Council
offers a rewarding career with comprehensive training and guidance. Click
here for more information. For more information about becoming a Fostering
Friendly employer please click here.

link for the first Click here  -
[4]https://www.stoke.gov.uk/info/20044/fost...

link for the second click here -
[5]https://www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/g...

Manage your council tax online and sign up for paperless billing with our
new online account at [6]www.stoke.gov.uk/onlineaccount - and access it
using the MyStoke app, putting fly-tipping, and litter reporting in your
hands at the touch of a button. Available in the [7]App Store and on
[8]Google Play

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. http://www.stoke.gov.uk/
2. http://www.stoke.gov.uk/dataprotection
3. mailto:[stoke%20on%20trent%20city%20council%20request%20email]
4. https://www.stoke.gov.uk/info/20044/fost...
5. https://www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/g...
6. http://www.stoke.gov.uk/onlineaccount
7. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-stoke...
8. https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...

Dear Mr Rowe

Your request for information ref. SOT-105837 about the local authority's
library services

We have now considered your request and a copy of the information is
attached below.

Please note that some of the information is exempt under Section 40 of the
Act and has been withheld.  This applies to individual officer names
contained within the attached document.

Section 40(2) (personal information) allows a public authority to withhold
information if it contravenes the principles of the Data Protection Act. 
Individual officer names have been withheld for this reason as they are
names of officers whose roles have no senior strategic decision making
activities and they would not therefore not have an expectation that their
names would be released into the public domain.

The information supplied may be used for domestic or journalistic
purposes.  Its use for commercial gain including issuing to the public,
social media or computer blogs may be subject to the issue of a licence
under the Reuse of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015.

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your
request and wish to make a complaint or request a review of our decision,
you should write to: The Information Rights Manager, Information Rights
Team, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Floor 2, Civic Centre, Glebe Street,
ST4 1HH, or email [1][Stoke on Trent City Council request email].

If, after contacting us, you are not content with the outcome, you may ask
the Information Commissioner for a decision.  Before doing this, please
see the following link for guidance from the Information Commissioner
relating to how to use your information rights responsibly and
effectively, to enable you to gain the best outcome from the process
- [2]http://ico.org.uk/for_the_public.

Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you
have already used our internal review procedure. The Information
Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, tel: 0303 123
1113 or you can visit their website
at [3]https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

You can find details of how we handle your personal information by
visiting [4]www.stoke.gov.uk/dataprotection

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Team

Information Rights

City of Stoke-on-Trent

Floor 2  Civic Centre  Glebe Street  Stoke-on-Trent  ST4 1HH

T: 01782 232853, 01782 233020, 01782 233732, 01782 235965

E: [5][Stoke on Trent City Council request email]

Request

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

Winner – UK Housing Awards Council of the Year 2019

Stoke-on-Trent City Council is a Fostering Friendly employer. Being a
foster carer is truly life changing. If you have a spare room and spare
time, even as little as one weekend a month, you can make a real
difference to a child’s life. Fostering for Stoke-on-Trent City Council
offers a rewarding career with comprehensive training and guidance. Click
here for more information. For more information about becoming a Fostering
Friendly employer please click here.

link for the first Click here  -
[6]https://www.stoke.gov.uk/info/20044/fost...

link for the second click here -
[7]https://www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/g...

Manage your council tax online and sign up for paperless billing with our
new online account at [8]www.stoke.gov.uk/onlineaccount - and access it
using the MyStoke app, putting fly-tipping, and litter reporting in your
hands at the touch of a button. Available in the [9]App Store and on
[10]Google Play

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[stoke%20on%20trent%20city%20council%20request%20email]
2. https://ico.org.uk/for_the_public
3. https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
4. http://www.stoke.gov.uk/dataprotection
5. mailto:[stoke%20on%20trent%20city%20council%20request%20email]
6. https://www.stoke.gov.uk/info/20044/fost...
7. https://www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/g...
8. http://www.stoke.gov.uk/onlineaccount
9. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-stoke...
10. https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...

Dear Mr Rowe

Please accept our apologies for this omission - the document is now attached.

Kind regards

Information Rights Team

Information Rights Team
City of Stoke-on-Trent
Strategy and Resources Directorate - Governance and Registrations
Civic Centre   Glebe Street   Stoke-on-Trent   ST4 1HH
Phone: 01782 232853, 233020, 233732, 235965
Email: [Stoke on Trent City Council request email]

show quoted sections