Dear Mr Shrimp

Thank you for your emails below.

Kent County Council acknowledges your request for information under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Assuming KCC holds this information, we
will endeavour to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later
than 9 February 2012 (20 working days from date of receipt).

We will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/12/0041 - in any
communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards

 
Laura Crawford
Information Access Officer
Information Resilience & Transparency Team
Business Strategy & Support, Governance & Law
Kent County Council, Room 2.71, Sessions House, County Road, Maidstone,
ME14 1XQ. 
Telephone: 01622 694261, Internal: 7000 4261, Fax: 01622 696075
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/cont...

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Dear Mr Shrimp

Further to your request for information in which you asked "What is the
total number of red pens bought by the council in the
past year, and how many worked"

Kent County Supplies (KCS) is owned by Kent County Council (KCC) and in
addition to being the KCC office stationary supplier they also supply
other organisations across the County.  Their data management system
cannot provide a correlation directly between the part number and the
order number, therefore it is not possible to analyse how many red pens
are supplied specifically to KCC.

Quality is an extremely important advantage to KCS, however they have not
recorded any returns or reports of faulty red pens. The County’s
procurement management system does not store the level of information
requested.

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied
with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints
process; details can be found at this link
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...
on our website. Please quote reference FOI/12/0041.

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should
you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the
Information Commissioner’s website
[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Yours sincerely

Pauline Banks

Kent County Council

BSS GL Information Resilience & Transparency

Sessions House, Rm 2.71

County Hall

Maidstone

Kent. ME14 1XQ

T: 01622 694999

F: 01622 696075
[3]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Freedom of Information
Sent: 12 January 2012 10:51
To: '[FOI #100155 email]'
Subject: FOI/12/0041 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF FOI REQUEST RECEIVED 12th JANUARY
2012
Importance: High

Dear Mr Shrimp

Thank you for your emails below.

Kent County Council acknowledges your request for information under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Assuming KCC holds this information, we
will endeavour to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later
than 9 February 2012 (20 working days from date of receipt).

We will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/12/0041 - in any
communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards

 
Laura Crawford
Information Access Officer
Information Resilience & Transparency Team
Business Strategy & Support, Governance & Law
Kent County Council, Room 2.71, Sessions House, County Road, Maidstone,
ME14 1XQ. 
Telephone: 01622 694261, Internal: 7000 4261, Fax: 01622 696075
[4]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/cont...

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Dear Mr Shrimp

Thank you for your email.

I am sorry you are unhappy with Kent County Council's response to your
request, specifically the fact that we do not hold information in the
level of detail required to answer either element of your request.

Your complaint will be investigated and reviewed by myself on behalf of
the Director of Governance & Law. My reply will be forthcoming within
20 working days from receipt of your email (by 1st March 2012)

Best regards

Caroline Dodge
Team Leader, Information Resilience & Transparency Team,
Business Strategy & Support, Governance & Law
Kent County Council, Room 2.71, Sessions House, County Road, Maidstone,
ME14 1XQ
Tel: 01622 221652, Internal 7000 1652,
Fax: 01622 696075
http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/cont...
x

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Dear Mr Shrimp

Thank you for your email. Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to you.

Kent County Supplies markets education and office supplies to over 7,500 customers across the south of England. One of its customers is also its owning authority i.e. Kent County Council. The management information systems within KCS are set to record overall annual and period sales of an individual product (e.g. sales of red pens to all KCS customers), a figure which is then used to finalise stockholding levels and for tendering purposes. Additionally the system also records the overall sales per individual customer broken down as per product grouping (e.g. stationery) but not by individual product line (e.g.: red pens) .

For your information, the KCS on-line catalogue suggests there are at least two dozen product lines under the search category "red pen"
http://www.kentwebshop.co.uk/home/produc...

Consequently, KCS could provide details of all red pen product lines supplied to all its customers and it could provide details of the amount of stationery supplied to KCC. However, KCS cannot extrapolate from its management information system the number/amount of a specific type of stationery (i.e.: red pens) supplied to KCC.

This is not to say that KCC does not hold this information. It may be possible to extrapolate the statistics you require by contacting each KCC budget manager and asking them to collate details of red pens they have ordered from KCS from any records they maintain. However, as there are over 1200 budget managers across the Authority, this exercise would clearly exceed the appropriate limit of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours at £25 per hour), so under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are not obliged to comply with your request.

If you are still unhappy with this decision, you can appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the Information Commissioner's website http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom... or you can phone the ICO Helpline on 08456 30 60 60.

Best regards

Caroline Dodge
Team Leader, Information Resilience & Transparency Team, Business Strategy & Support, Governance & Law Kent County Council, Room 2.71, Sessions House, County Road, Maidstone, ME14 1XQ
Tel: 01622 221652, Internal 7000 1652,
Fax: 01622 696075
http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/cont...

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