Reports of the implementation group for the Review of Teaching and Learning Support Services

The request was successful.

Bruce Beckles

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please supply in electronic form ALL minutes, reports, papers or other documents produced by the implementation group for the Report of the Review Committee for Teaching and Learning Support Services. This implementation group was, I believe, established by the University's General Board at their meeting of 8 October 2008.

I believe (but cannot be certain) that this implementation group has produced at least one report (of a meeting on 15 December 2008) which has been presented to the University's General Board as Paper No. 09.B.03. Note that this may not be the only report, set of minutes, etc. produced by this group.

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles

FOI, University of Cambridge

Dear Mr Beckles,

This is to acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information request. Your reference number is
FOI-2009-56. We will respond on or before 3 June 2009.

Regards,

FOI Team

--------------------
University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

show quoted sections

FOI, University of Cambridge

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Beckles,

Further to your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, I enclose the
University's response.

Kind Regards,

FOI Team

--------------------
University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

show quoted sections

Bruce Beckles

Dear FOI,

Thank you for the documents you have provided in response to my request. However, I note that the minutes you have provided refer to Paper ISG2 ("The Report and the responses to the consultation"), and that you have not provided a copy of this paper.

You have previously supplied the Report to me in response to my FOI request FOI-2009-34. Please supply, as soon as possible, and in electronic form, those parts of Paper ISG2 that you have not already given me in response to one of my FOI requests (which I believe, but may be mistaken, will just be "the responses to the consultation").

Also, in your reply you say that "The Implementation Steering Group has met only once, on 15 December 2008". However, since making my FOI request, I have been informed that a "follow-up meeting" of this group was scheduled for 26 May 2009. Please will you clarify whether, in fact, this meeting took place?

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

FOI, University of Cambridge

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Beckles,
Further to your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, I enclose the
University's response.
Regards,
FOI Team

University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane
Cambridge
CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

show quoted sections

Dear FOI,

Thank you for confirming that the Implementation Steering Group did indeed meet on 26 May 2009. Please supply in electronic form ALL minutes, reports, papers or other documents produced by the Group for, or as a result of, or tabled at, their meeting of 26 May 2009.

Thank you also for supplying Paper ISG2 (apparently with some redactions). In examining the PDF you supplied, I have not noticed any redactions, although that may be my oversight. Please let me know whether you have made the redactions in the document obvious (e.g. by blacking out the relevant text, or replacing with "[Redacted]" or similar), as I believe is considered best practice when redacting data.

Also, the response from the Deputy Head of the Engineering Department (Teaching) on page 70 of Paper ISG2 (as supplied by you) seems to be incomplete: the last sentence on that page is "If a lecturer has to ask too many times for a particular computer" which, I am sure you will agree, seems to be a truncated sentence. (Page 71 is response from the Librarian of the Engineering Department.) Please confirm whether the remainder of the Deputy Head (Teaching)'s response has been redacted, or whether it was never part of Paper ISG2, or whether it has been omitted by mistake. If it has been omitted by mistake, please supply it, in electronic form, as soon as possible.

Also, the response from the Judge Business School as given on page 72 of Paper ISG2 (as supplied by you) seems to be incomplete. Page 72 ends "Specific applications include:" but page 73 does not list any "Specific applications", but rather is an e-mail containing the response from the Computer Laboratory. Please confirm whether the remainder of the Judge Business School's response has been redacted, or whether it was never part of Paper ISG2, or whether it has been omitted by mistake. If it has been omitted by mistake, please supply it, in electronic form, as soon as possible.

The response from the departmental librarian in the Computer Laboratory on page 74 of the Paper ISG2 (as supplied by you) also seems to be incomplete. This page ends with the apparently truncated sentence "I thank you in advance for the opportunity of making these comments and hope", whilst page 75 is the start of the response from the University Library. Please confirm whether the remainder of the departmental librarian in the Computer Laboratory's response has been redacted, or whether it was never part of Paper ISG2, or whether it has been omitted by mistake. If it has been omitted by mistake, please supply it, in electronic form, as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

Dear FOI,

I note that on page 36 of Paper ISG2 (as provided as a PDF document by you) reference is made to a response from the Acting Director of the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics (RCEAL) that was "to be circulated on receipt" [by the Chairman of the Faculty Board of the Faculty of English]. However this does not appear to be included in the document you supplied. Please confirm whether the Acting Director of RCEAL's response has been redacted, or whether it was never part of Paper ISG2, or whether it has been omitted by mistake. If it has been omitted by mistake, please supply it, in electronic form, as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

FOI, University of Cambridge

Dear Mr Beckles,

This is to acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information request. Your reference number is
FOI-2009-71. We will respond on or before 14 July 2009.

Regards,

FOI Team

--------------------
University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

show quoted sections

Dear FOI,

Thank you for your e-mail of 17 June 2009. However, I am unclear why you have decided to treat my first e-mail of 16 June 2009 as a *NEW* Freedom of Information request. That e-mail asked for two things:

(a) information regarding the meeting of the implementation steering group on 26 May 2009; and

(b) clarification regarding the possible omission/redaction of parts of Paper ISG2 that you had already supplied.

It seems clear that (b) is not a new Freedom of Information request, but rather a request for you to clarify/better handle information you have already provided. I therefore do not see why this part of my e-mail should be treated as a new Freedom of Information request.

Regarding (a), I observe that you first responded with some of the information I requested on 3 June 2009 (my original request was made on 1 May 2009, so this response was late). Section 1(4) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 states that:

"The information—

(a) in respect of which the applicant is to be informed under subsection (1)(a), or

(b) which is to be communicated under subsection (1)(b),

is the information in question held at the time when the request is received, except that account may be taken of any amendment or deletion made between that time and the time when the information is to be communicated under subsection (1)(b), being an amendment or deletion that would have been made regardless of the receipt of the request."

Since I do not believe that the meeting of 26 May 2009 was held because of my Freedom of Information request, the information relating to this meeting constitutes an *amendment* to the information held by the University on 1 May 2009 (date of my request) that would have been made regardless of my request. This amendment therefore should have been supplied to me when you answered my request (as my request was for "ALL minutes, reports, papers or other documents produced by the implementation group"). Thus my request for (a) should not be treated as a new Freedom of Information request either.

I further observe that, in respect of deletions, the Information Commissioner (IC) interprets Section 1(4) as follows:

"Section 1(4) of FOIA says that the right to know applies to all information held at the time that a request is received, except information deleted before the time for responding if that deletion would have been made regardless of the request."

The above is taken from the IC's "Practical guidance: Destruction of requested information" at:

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

Since Section 1(4) treats deletions and amendments in exactly the same way, I therefore conclude that the IC would interpret Section 1(4) as I have done above.

Finally, as I am sure you are aware, the activities of the implementation steering group will be discussed as part of a Discussion of a topic of concern to the University on 7 July 2009:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/curr...

By treating my e-mail as a *new* Freedom of Information request, you are allowing the University to withhold information crucial to this Discussion until 14 July 2009, i.e. after the Discussion. This may not be intentional on your part, but if it is, I would observe that the Information Commissioner is likely to view such a delay as grounds for issuing a Decision Notice against the University ("the effect of delay or other non-compliance served the purposes of the public authority and requires censure in an adverse Decision Notice (e.g. avoiding disclosure at a critical time)"):

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

I would therefore strongly encourage you to supply the requested information sufficiently far in advance of 7 July 2009 that those taking part in the Discussion on that date have adequate time to consider it.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

FOI, University of Cambridge

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Beckles,
Thank you for your email.
I attach a letter providing clarification regarding the omission/redaction of parts of Paper ISG2.
Regards,
FOI team.

University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane
Cambridge
CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

show quoted sections

FOI, University of Cambridge

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Beckles,

Further to your recent request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, please find
enclosed the University's response.

Kind regards,
FOI Team


--------------------
University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

show quoted sections

Dear FOI,

Thank you for your complete, and relatively prompt, replies to my e-mail of 16 June 2009, which have provided the information I was seeking.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

Dear FOI,

Thank you again for the documents you have provided in response to my request. However, I note that the minutes of the meeting of the Implementation Steering Group on 15 December 2008 say that the "Minutes of the fourth meeting of the Review Committee held on 9 June 2008, and extracts of the minutes of the General Board meetings of 9 July and 8 October 2008, were circulated for information", but that you have not provided a copy of these minutes and extracts of minutes.

Please supply, as soon as possible, and in electronic form, the "Minutes of the fourth meeting of the Review Committee held on 9 June 2008" and the "extracts of the minutes of the General Board meetings of 9 July and 8 October 2008" as circulated at the Implementation Steering Group meeting of 15 December 2008.

Again, please note that the University has scheduled a discussion for 7 July 2009 at which this information may well be relevant:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/curr...

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

FOI, University of Cambridge

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Beckles,

Please find enclosed a letter from Dr Kirsty Allen regarding this Freedom of Information request.

Regards,
FOI Team

--------------------
University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

show quoted sections

Dear FOI,

Thank you very much for your prompt reply to my e-mail of 24 June 2009.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

Bruce Beckles left an annotation ()

The documents and information unearthed by this request are expected to be of considerable use in an
upcoming Discussion of a topic of concern to the University:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2008...

I have created a web page that explains much of the background of this matter (and which refers heavily to the information/documents provided here) at:

http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/~mbb10/TL...

Note that this URL may not be permanent.

Bruce Beckles

Dear FOI,

Thank you very much for the document(s) you have supplied in response to my request. As your responses
to my request have provided information and [parts of] documents over the course of several e-mails, please could you clarify the following for me:

Did the report from the implementation steering group's meeting of 15 December 2008, provided to the General Board as GB Paper No. 09.B.03, contain Paper ISG2, or does it merely mention it on its first page but not actually include a copy of Paper ISG2?

(Note that I am not asking for you to supply me with either GB Paper No. 09.B.03 or Paper ISG2 as you have already done so [modulo redactions].)

A prompt response would be much appreciated as this may well be of interest in the forthcoming Discussion of a topic of concern to the University on 7 July 2009:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/curr...

Thank you again for your help with this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

FOI, University of Cambridge

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Beckles,
Further to your request under the Freedom of Information Act, I attach a letter from Dr Kirsty Allen
Regards,
FOI Team

University of Cambridge
Secretariat, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane
Cambridge
CB2 1TN

T: (01223 7)64142
F: (01223 3)32332
[email address]

show quoted sections

Bruce Beckles

Dear FOI,

Thank you very much for your extremely prompt reply.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

Bruce Beckles left an annotation ()

The documents and information unearthed by this request were referred to in a Discussion of a topic of concern to the University. You can read the remarks made at the Discussion here:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2008...

Bruce Beckles left an annotation ()

The documentation and information unearthed by this FOI request are referred to in an article in Times Higher Education (THE) [which also mentions this request]:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/st...