Dear University of Cambridge,

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting that you provide me with the following information regarding electoral counting and recording procedures associated with Regent House Grace 3 of 15 June 2011.

When refusing the Freedom of Information request FOI-2011-195 by Isobel Urquhart, the University cited the expectation of confidentiality attaching to anonymous voting in Regent House Grace ballots.

Would you therefore provide me with

1) Copies of the two ballot papers which were not counted as they were considered to be invalid, but with the voters' names or other identifiers redacted.

2) Copies of a further two ballot papers which were considered 'doubtful', but with the voters' names or other identifiers redacted.

3) The Presiding Officer's report on these four ballots, including the reasons they were judged either invalid or doubtful by that officer. Because as I understand it this officer had absolute discretion over such decisions, I would expect that a detailed report exists that reviews and explains these judgments. If such a report in its details should contravene the confidentiality of the voter, I will accept a version with the names or other identifiers redacted.

In addition, please provide the following information:

4) A catalogue or inventory of the material archival data stored by the University concerning this vote directly. If it is estimated that the time taken to supply this data would, in conjunction with the rest of my request, exceed the time for which the University is obliged to comply with requests under the Act, then only provide the item names.

6) A statement of whose responsibility it is to record and keep such data according to University regulations.

7) A statement as to the length of time such data is required to be stored according to University regulations.

I fully embrace the University's commitment to the confidentiality of its Regent House voters, and I am sure there can be no question of this commitment being infringed by any of these requests. I also applaud the University of Cambridge's emphatic commitment to transparency, and I am glad to be able to put the transparency of its voting procedures to a healthy test in this way.

In the unlikely event that this request should be refused on the grounds of confidentiality, I would ask that the University provide a detailed, case-specific rationale for such a refusal, and how it might be reconciled with the necessary obligation of transparency in a self-governing charity.

Please send all replies electronically to this email address.

Yours faithfully,
Dr [Name Removed]

Dear FOI Team,

thank you for your response to my FoI request, which I received yesterday. I apologize for the misnumbering of the items comprising my request - that was unhelpful of me.

There are several aspects of your reply that I believe you need to clarify or enlarge upon.

Firstly, in response to my request (6/7) for a statement as to any regulations governing the storage of the ballot papers in question, you write that 'no such regulations are held'. This makes the phrase 'the normal course of business', which you use to describe the University's destruction of the said ballot papers (1/2), very ambiguous. Could you therefore clarify for me what you mean by 'normal course of business'? By what standard is normalcy being judged in this instance, if there are no regulations defining this standard? For example, have you been able to confirm that the same timetable for disposal is used for all Senate House ballot papers - let us say in the ballots that have taken place over the course of the last three years? I would also like you to clarify whose 'course of business' is being referred to. Whose decision was it to destroy such important documentary material, and who executed this decision? Furthermore, can you be more precise about the date of disposal than 'prior to the receipt of [my] request'? As I mentioned in my request, these documents were subject to a separate FoI request which you refused on 6 September 2011, at which point the documents still existed. Until these details are cleared up, your response to my requests (1) and (2) is unsatisfactory.

Secondly, in (4), you respond 'No such catalogue is held', when my request had clearly been for you to create a catalogue describing the information held by the University concerning the vote in question. I do not believe there is any semantic ambiguity worth speaking of in this part of my request; and I made prophylactic provision within (4) in order that the working time for this part of the request should not be excessive. If you have misunderstood this part of the request, please supply me with the information as I requested it. If you are refusing to supply me with such a catalogue, please justify your decision.

I am aware that I would need to request an internal review within forty days, should this prove necessary. Could you therefore expedite your response to this letter, to give me time to decide if an internal review is appropriate?

Yours faithfully,
[Name Removed]

Dear FOI Team,

thank you for your response: some of my queries have been answered.

As I am sure you will be aware, in 2008 the Information Commissioner's Office issued guidelines which stated:

'As a matter of good practice, [public bodies] should keep all requested information for at least 6 months to allow for appeals to the Information Commissioner.'

See: http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

In my view, the destruction of the ballot papers in question just a short time after the refusal of request FOI-2011-195 by Isobel Urquhart breached this code of good practice. Although this was not my request and therefore outside my right of appeal, and although I do not believe an internal review on these grounds would be especially productive in this context, I wonder if you would comment on the readiness of the University of Cambridge to introduce regulations that conform to 'good practice' as determined by the Information Commissioner?

I must ask you to clarify your refusal of my request for 'a catalogue or inventory of the material archival data stored by the University concerning this vote directly' on the grounds that 'the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not require a public authority to create documents which are not held at the time when a request is received'.

Firstly, although I accept that the creation of documents does not fall within your duties under the Act, could you refer to the place in the Act which you are citing, to avoid confusion?

Secondly, I must dispute that I am asking you to 'create' any document other than the usual letter or email of response. I am requesting that you supply me with details of the information held on a certain subject by the University of Cambridge as a public authority: these details would necessarily take the form of 'a catalogue or inventory'; they could hardly take any other form. Under section 1 of the act I am entitled 'to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request' - I have requested whether the University holds 'material archival data [...] concerning this vote directly', and it seems to me that you are required by the Act to confirm whether such data is held or not, and what it comprises. Indeed, you would be required to supply me with it, if I had not ceded my right to this on the grounds that it might be invalidated by expense. You have informed me that some of this data has been destroyed; however, my request for a description of the University's holdings covered all material data relating to the ballot.

While I accept that one could interpret my request for 'a catalogue or inventory' as demanding the creation of a new document, this would be an overly narrow interpretation of a request which is in fact a straightforward application for details of held information, which is certainly covered by the Act.

I apologize if this seems pedantic, but I would remind you that it is your duty, under sections 16 and 45 of the Act, 'to provide advice and assistance, so far as it would be reasonable to expect [you] to do so, to persons who propose to make, or have made, requests for information'. The fact that each of your responses has demanded clarification should signal that this expectation is not being met in this instance. You have resisted being specific until prompted by my follow-ups, and indeed use unnecessarily vague language even when asked to clarify (for example, when asked who destroyed the ballot papers, you answer 'those with operational oversight of the Strong Room', which does not answer the question).

I await your reply.

Yours sincerely,

[Name Removed]