Registered Food Business Establishments
Dear Bath and North East Somerset Council,
According to the Food Law Code of Practice (http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/c...), section 1.4.2, a local authority must maintain a database of all registered food establishments in the area. According to the guidance all establishments much be registered within 28 days.
I would like to request that you make available this database in a machine readable format, ideally as a simple CSV file or failing that an Excel spreadsheet.
Ideally the CSV file would include:
* Local authority id for the establishment
* Name
* Address, with separate fields for each address line, postcode
* Date of registration
* Contact details, e.g. phone, fax, email
* Business Type, as per Food rating guide
If possible I would also like to know the date of next food inspection for the premises.
While the Food ratings website (http://ratings.food.gov.uk/) includes much of this data, this only includes those premises that have been inspected. It also does not include date of next inspection. I would like to get a full list of premises.
If possible could this report be made available on a monthly basis, e.g. as a download from the council website, in order to allow myself and others to maintain up to date records as information changes?
Yours faithfully,
Leigh Dodds
Dear Mr Dodds
Freedom of Information Act 2000
Thank you for your recent request for information regarding a list of all
registered food establishments within the LA area. Your request is now
being dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 a public authority has to
respond within 20 working days. Accordingly you will receive our full
response in due course.
Yours sincerely
Amy Ogborne
Information Compliance Manager
Risk and Assurance Services
Bath & North East Somerset Council
Telephone: 01225 396872
Facsimile: 01225 477387
[1]www.bathnes.gov.uk
Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and
visit.
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
Dear Leigh
Thank you for your recent request for information. Please find enclosed
the information you are entitled to receive under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.
You will note that some information has been withheld. This information
is exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (Personal Information). This section of the Act
provides an exemption to the general right of access to information, where
the disclosure of personal information would breach any of the Data
Protection principles. The Council considers that disclosure of this
information would constitute a breach of the fairness requirement of the
first principle. This is because the individuals in question have not
consented to the disclosure of their details. In addition they have a
reasonable expectation that the Council will keep their information
confidential.
I can advise that all of the Council’s inspections are risk based and
mostly unannounced. Therefore the Council does not hold next inspection
dates for all establishments and to declare a next inspection date overtly
undermines the Council’s enforcement obligation.
I can also advise that at present the Council does not have any intentions
of publishing this information on the Council’s website on a monthly
basis.
I trust that we have answered your queries, however if you have any
further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
If you are unhappy with the response to your request, you may ask for an
internal review within 40 working days of receipt of this request. Please
contact the Divisional Director – Risk and Assurance Services, Mr Jeff
Wring at the Guildhall, High St, Bath BA1 5AW
[1]mailto:[email address].
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to appeal directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
[2]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.
Please note that we have not, by way of this disclosure, granted any
permission for you to reuse or further publish the information disclosed
to you. Please refer to the attached disclaimer regarding reuse.
Yours sincerely
Amy Ogborne
Information Compliance Manager
Risk and Assurance Services
Bath & North East Somerset Council
Telephone: 01225 396872
Facsimile: 01225 477387
[3]www.bathnes.gov.uk
Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and
visit.
Please consider the environment before printing this email
Dear Information Governance,
Thank you for responding to my request. However, In my original request I asked if the material could be made available as either a CSV file or an Excel spreadsheet. Either of those formats would allow me to directly work with the information. A PDF isn't useful to me as I would have to re-key it in order to use it.
As noted in the recent changes in FOI legislation, a public body has to meet reasonable requests for provision of data in electronic form:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012...
I'd also like to clarify the reuse of information document. Is there a reason why this information cannot be released under the Open Government License? Otherwise I would like permission to republish this information.
Yours sincerely,
Leigh Dodds
Dear Mr Dodds
Thank you for your email below. I apologise for the delay in responding.
I have now been able to review the definition of a 'data set' in the
Protection of Freedoms Act (the Act) and assess whether the information
you requested falls within that definition. I can confirm that the
information we provided was a data set for the purposes of the Act. As
such please find attached the requested information in Excel format.
I trust that we have answered your queries, however if you have any
further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
If you are unhappy with the response to your request, you may ask for an
internal review within 40 working days of receipt of this request. Please
contact the Divisional Director – Risk and Assurance Services, Mr Jeff
Wring at the Guildhall, High St, Bath BA1 5AW
[1]mailto:[email address].
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to appeal directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
[2]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.
Please note that we have not, by way of this disclosure, granted any
permission for you to reuse or further publish the information disclosed
to you. Please refer to the attached disclaimer regarding reuse.
Yours sincerely
Amy Ogborne
Information Compliance Manager
Risk and Assurance Services
Bath & North East Somerset Council
Telephone: 01225 396872
Facsimile: 01225 477387
[3]www.bathnes.gov.uk
Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and
visit.
Please consider the environment before printing this email
Dear Amy,
Thank you for responding to my further question and for making the data available in Excel. This is much more useful to me, so thank you for doing that.
My one remaining question is with regards to the license for reusing the information. The terms of use you have appended suggest that the data can only be used for research or personal uses and that I cannot re-publish it.
Is there a reason why the data could not be made available under the Open Government License, in line with other Government datasets?
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/o...
Failing that, can I have explicit permission to re-publish the data in other formats?
Yours sincerely,
Leigh Dodds
We work to defend the right to FOI for everyone
Help us protect your right to hold public authorities to account. Donate and support our work.
Donate Now