Paper costs and carbon footprint reduction targets

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Harrogate Borough Council should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Harrogate Borough Council,

I am currently compiling data on the cost to both the environment and expenditure on the use of paper.

I would be grateful if you can give me information on the following:

1) The total amount of reams of paper used by the authority in the last 12 months
2) The amount of expenditure on printing, photocopying, and consumables for internal purposes. We are not interested in the amount of expenditure for printing of publications for external use.
3) The amount of recycling of paper from your offices.
4) Does the local authority have a target to reduce the use of paper - if so what is the current progress?
5) Does the local authority have a target to reduce their carbon footprint - if so what is the current progress?

Yours faithfully,

A R Shaw

Foi, Harrogate Borough Council

Dear A R Shaw

 

Thank you for your email which we received on 07/11/2017. We are treating
this as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act
2000. This means that —

 

o if we need more information about what you want, we will contact you
again as soon as we can; the twenty working days in which to give you
the information will start once we know exactly what you want
o if we do not hold the information, we will, if we can, transfer your
request to an authority who does hold it, and tell you what we have
done (please contact us immediately if you do not want us to do this);
otherwise, we will let you know that we do not hold the information
o if we hold the information and there is no reason to withhold it, we
will send it to you as soon as we can.  If there is likely to be a
delay for any reason, we will let you know
o if we believe that there is a good reason why the information should
not be disclosed, we will let you know as much as we can about how we
reached our decision

 

We will respond to your request promptly, and in any event, within the 20
working day limit as set out in s10 of the Act.

 

Regards

 

Rich Kemp LLB (Hons)

(Debt & Information Law)

Legal & Governance

Harrogate Borough Council

PO Box 787

Harrogate

HG1 9RW

 

tel: 01423 500600 (ext - 58602)

email:  [1][email address]

[2]www.harrogate.gov.uk

 

 

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Rich Kemp, Harrogate Borough Council

Dear A R Shaw

 

Please accept our apologies for the late response to your request, over
the last few weeks the Council have been decanting from various office
locations around the town to a new purpose built civic offices, which I'm
sure you can appreciate has meant a period of resources being diverted
towards ensuring that move is smooth as possible, this is particularly so
for the Workplace & Facilities team which holds the information you
request. I have reminded them of your request and will continue to pursue
them for this information. Please bear with us.

 

In response to Q4: we don’t have a specific target presently, we will in
the future, but at present it is just that we are looking to reduce paper
by rolling out technology which will help us reduce the amount of paper
used. 

 

In response to Q5: we publicly report our annual carbon footprint, which
shows an overall decreasing trend in recent years; in 2016/17 emissions
were approximately 12.5.% lower than 2012/13. We do not currently have a
specific carbon reduction target for our own operations, although one is
being agreed and will be adopted (in 2018) as part of our new Carbon
Reduction Strategy.

 

Regards

 

Rich Kemp

(Debt & Information Law)

Legal & Governance

Harrogate Borough Council

PO Box 787

Harrogate

HG1 9RW

 

tel: 01423 500600 (ext - 58602)

email:  [1][email address]

[2]www.harrogate.gov.uk

 

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