Cyfarwyddwr Rheoli Gwybodaeth/
Strategol:
Adnoddau Information Compliance

Strategic Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall
Director:
Resources Spa Road East

Mark Evans Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
  If calling please ask for /
Os yn galw gofynnwch am
 
 
 
Tel / Ffôn:  01597 82
  7543         

  Fax / Ffacs:  01597 82
6215      
 
Email/Llythyru electronig:
[1][Powys County Council request email]

Our ref / Ein cyf: 
F2018-1340

Date / Dyddiad:   18/12/18

Request Accepted

FREEDOM of INFORMATION ACT 2000

Reference No: F2018/1340

Dear Ms Newman

Thank you for your request for information, received at this office on 
17/12/18, in which you requested details of the following:

Hendy Wind Farm 2

The above is a summary of your request. The full details of the
information sought is provided to the officer to whom the request is
tasked.

Your request will now be considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act, subject
to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third
party. In some circumstances Powys County Council may be unable to achieve
this deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised
time-scale at the earliest opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information you request. If this is the case you will be informed and
the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment
from you. If you choose not to make a payment then your request will
remain unanswered.

Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to
another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest
possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.

The due date for responding to this request for information is 17/1/19.

Should you need to discuss this further please contact the Information
Compliance Team on 01597 827543.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

Yours sincerely,

Information Compliance Officer

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Powys County Council request email]

Rheoli Gwybodaeth/

Information Compliance

Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall

Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
  If calling please ask for / Os yn galw gofynnwch am

Tel / Ffôn: 01597 82 7543

Email/Llythyru electronig: [1][email address]

Our ref / Ein cyf: F2018-1330

Date / Dyddiad: 18/2/19

Reference No: F2018-1330

Dear, Ms Newman

Thank you for your request for information dated 17/12/18 concerning Hendy
Wind Farm 2

This is to inform you that your request has been considered and I can
provide the following response:

The Request/The Response:

The Request/Response

1.    I wish to see a copy of the Consultant's Report drawn up [by A
Metcalfe of En-PlanI believe] for the Planning Committee meeting which
discussed the Application for the Hendy Wind farm., and to which your
officer quoted from while defending the recommendation for Approval.

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Powys County
Council, when refusing to provide such information (because the
information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

states that fact;

specifies the exemption in question and

states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption
applies.

In this instance the relevant exemption is Section 21 of the Freedom of
Information Act.

Section 21: Information accessible to applicant by other means -

Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than
under section 1 is exempt information.

For the purposes of subsection (1) -

Information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it
is accessible only on payment, and,

Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if
it is information which the public authority or any other person is
obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making
the information available for inspection) to members of the public on
request, whether free of charge or on payment.

For the purposes of subsection (1), information which is held by a public
authority and does not fall within subsection (2) (b) is not to be
regarded as reasonably accessible to the applicant merely because the
information is available from the public authority itself on request,
unless the information is made available in accordance with the
authority’s publication scheme and any payment required is specified in,
or determined in accordance with, the scheme.

([2]https://powys.moderngov.co.uk/mgChooseDo...) – Public
reports Pack - the report from Andrew Metcalfe for application reference
P/2014/0672 is available on pages 7 – 88.  This is a planning committee
report produced by Enplane.

Any updated reports or supplementary report information will be found in
the links

[3]https://powys.moderngov.co.uk/documents/...

and

[4]https://powys.moderngov.co.uk/documents/...

In accordance with Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am
unable to provide you with the details you have requested.

2.    When did the Planning Committee agree to this Report being done ? 

The decision to commission this report was not made by the Planning
Committee.

3.    When was this extra charge to Powys CC signed off by Cabinet ?

(I have gone back to the requestor to find out what this extra charge
refers too)

“I am referring to the commissioning of a Consultant's report for the
application for 7 wind turbines at Hendy Llandegley - when did the Cabinet
agree to the funds being made available for this report ?”

The decision to commission the report was made by Development Management
and had no need to be signed off by Cabinet.

4.    Which officer recommended commissioning a Report by an external
company ?

The Professional Lead for Development Management recommended commissioning
a report by an external company.

5.    Is this normal practice for Powys planners to have external advice
on a Planning Application,

Powys County Council have no recorded information regarding the practice
of seeking advice from external sources therefore Section 1 of the Freedom
of Information Act is engaged.

              Under Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act a public
authority is required to inform you

1 (a) whether the information requested is held by the public authority,
and

(b) to have that information communicated if that is the case.

In this case the information requested is not held.

·       if so how many times has it happened in the last 2 years?

There are 3642 planning applications on the Powys County Council Planning
Portal in the 2 years requested (1/1/2017 – 31/12/18) - this does not take
into account those applications that have not reached the registration
stage.  Answering this question would require us to check each individual
planning application online to see if any external advice had been sought
on that particular application. If it takes a very conservative 1 minute
to check each application,

3642 x 1 min = 3642 minutes - is over 60 hours

This is well over the maximum of 18 hours of search and retrieval time for
such a request. Therefore, section 12 is engaged.

( To be of assistance, the link to the planning portal can be found here -
[5]http://pa.powys.gov.uk/online-applicatio... )

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Powys County
Council, when refusing to provide such information (because the
information Is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

(a)  states that fact;

(b)  specifies the exemption in question and

(c)  states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption
applies.

In this instance the relevant exemption is Section 12 of the Freedom of
Information Act.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 makes provision for
public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of
dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, as detailed in the
Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate limit) Regulations 2004.

The limit for public authorities is set at £450 which amounts to a maximum
of 18 hours of search and retrieval time charged at £25.00 per person per
hour.

The Regulations set out what may be taken into account when public
authorities are estimating whether the appropriate limit has been
exceeded. The costs are limited to those that an authority reasonably
expects to incur in:

·       determining whether it holds the information requested

·       locating the information or documents containing the information

·       retrieving such information or documents

·       extracting the information from the document containing it
(including editing or reformatting information)

We are therefore not obliged to provide a response to this part of  your
request, as the time required for officers to locate, retrieve and extract
the data from information held would exceed the appropriate limit.

In accordance with Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am
unable to provide you with the details you have requested.

6.    What was the cost to Powys County Council i.e the Council taxpayers
of Powys ? Did any other person or body contribute to this  Report ?

The cost of external parties for processing the planning application and
appeal is £84,383.96.  All the information with regards to persons or
bodies who contributed to this report can be found on the link in question
1.

7.    In other words I wish to see the complete audit trail for this
Report – has this been provided?

Please see the link provided in question 1

We regret the delay you have experienced with this request. We acknowledge
that Powys County Council has failed in its obligation under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000, to provide you with a response to your request
within the statutory timescale of 20 working days. Please accept our
apologies for this and for any inconvenience this may have caused.

We believe that this request is now complete and shall be closed
immediately. Should any further information be requested regarding this
topic, a separate request will need to be submitted.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

Yours sincerely,

Information Compliance Team

The supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give the
person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the
documents in a way that would infringe copyright.

You are free to use any information supplied for your own use, including
for non-commercial research purposes. The information may also be used for
the purposes of news reporting. However, any other type of re-use, for
example, by publishing the information or issuing copies to the public
will require the permission of the copyright owner.

The copyright of most of the information that we provide in response to
Freedom of Information Act requests will be owned by Powys County Council.
The copyright in other information may be owned by another person or
organisation, as indicated in the information itself.

For HMSO Guidance Notes on a range of copyright issues, see the Office of
Public Sector Information(OPSI) website.

[6]http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copy...

If you are dissatisfied with the service you have received in relation to
your request and wish to make a complaint, please contact Information
Compliance. Our complaints procedure is available on request or on our
website.

If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an appeal to
the Information Commissioner, who is the statutory regulator. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

2nd floor

Churchill House

Churchill way

Cardiff

CF10 2HH

Tel: 029 2067 8400

Email: [7][email address]

[8]www.ico.org.uk

[9]Footer_banner[1]

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. https://powys.moderngov.co.uk/mgChooseDo...
3. https://powys.moderngov.co.uk/documents/...
4. https://powys.moderngov.co.uk/documents/...
5. http://pa.powys.gov.uk/online-applicatio...
6. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copy...
7. mailto:[email address]
8. http://www.ico.org.uk/