Publishing in machine readable data from August
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for publishing your data on expenditure over £25,000. However, I notice that your spend data is in pdf format, which is not machine readable and so cannot be used for data analysis. Under 2.26 of Guidance for publishing spend (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...) publishers are to publish in a CSV file format rather than a PDF format.
Therefore, I would like to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all transactions over £25,000 from August. Please provide the spend data in the CSV format which is machine readable. As a minimum, please make sure to include the date, value and recipient of each transaction. Please also provide details on the procurement category of each transaction if you have it.
Your team may be interested in the guidance on producing spending data, which specifies that the data must be published in a machine readable format: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio.... This letter makes it clear that this guidance applies to the NHS: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy....
Please note that it is permissible to request data in a specified format under the terms of the FOI Act: https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/court-....
For the avoidance of doubt, I am making this request under the Freedom of Information Act. I await your response within 20 working days. Please be aware that I will continue to submit FOI requests to you on a monthly basis until all your spending data is published in a machine-readable format.
Yours Faithfully,
Zsofia Molnar
Spend Network
Dear Zsofia,
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request (our ref 5963)
We will aim to respond to your request within 20 working days.
Best wishes
Saimah Tahir
Corporate Governance Manager
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
[1]www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk
References
Visible links
1. http://www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk/
Dear Saimah Tahir,
On 27th January, I sent you a FOI request for your expenditure over £25,000 from August to present in machine readable format. It was allocated the reference 5963.
On 30th January, you sent a confirmation that you have received our request and wanting to reply in 20 days but unfortunately we did not receive anything yet.
However, the guidance for publishing spend data for government departments states:
2.10 Spend is to be published one month in arrears, ie by the last working day of the month following the month to which the data relates. If the data is available before the end of the month, it should be published as soon as the department has cleared it for release. This data is to be published in individual monthly files.
2.11 You should not hold up the publication of your data where you have unresolved individual queries. You should publish the cleared data within the publication timescales, and amend the data at a later date if necessary. See section 2.5 for further detail on applying redactions to the data.
Please see here for more details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio.... This letter makes it clear that this guidance applies to the NHS: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy....
This means that the data requested should already be published. For this reason, I would like to request an Internal Review of the initial response to my Freedom of Information request.
Please also take note of this decision notice from the ICO on the use of Section 22 of the FOI Act in these circumstances: https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...
I await your response within 20 working days.
Yours Faithfully,
Zsofia Molnar
Spend Network
Dear Zsofia,
I apologise for the delay in providing a response to your request. We will
have a response sent to you soon.
Best wishes
Saimah Tahir
Corporate Governance Manager
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
[1]www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk
References
Visible links
1. http://www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk/
Dear Zsofia,
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. Please find our
response attached.
I would like to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act for
all transactions over £25,000 from August. Please provide the spend data
in the CSV format which is machine readable. As a minimum, please make
sure to include the date, value and recipient of each transaction. Please
also provide details on the procurement category of each transaction if
you have it.
Please refer to the attached documents.
If you are dissatisfied with this response and wish to appeal then please
let me know by writing to:
Corporate Governance
The Royal Marsden
Fulham Road
London
SW3 6JJ
Or alternatively, you can email: [1][The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust request email]
Any complaints will be dealt with through our Internal Review procedure.
If you are still not satisfied following the Internal Review, you have a
right to appeal to the Information Commissioner using the following
contact details:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
Best wishes
Saimah Tahir
Corporate Governance Manager
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
[2]www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust request email]
2. http://www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk/
Dear Saimah,
Thank you very much for your kind reply and for your cooperation!
Kind regards, Zsofia
Spend Network
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