I am writing regarding your request for information which I received on
12 January 2011. In that request you asked us for information about road
hazards

Section 8(1) of the FOIA sets out the requirements of a valid request
for information and says that a request must, amongst other things,
"state the name of the applicant and an address for correspondence". The
Information Commissioner's guidance on this explains that the use of the
phrase "the name of the applicant" in section 8(1)(b) indicates that the
real name of the applicant should be used when requesting information.
Your name is not clear to me from the email address you have used. As it
stands, therefore, your email is not a valid FOI request. We will,
however, be pleased to deal with it once you provide your name.

Please note that if I do not receive appropriate clarification of your
information request within three months from the date of this letter,
then I will consider your request closed.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Dan Ellis

show quoted sections

Dear Ms Cooper

FOI Request ref  937/ Cooper/ Road Hazards

Thank you for your request for information about road hazards. Your
request was received on 15 January 2012 and I am dealing with it under the
terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We always aim to respond as quickly as possible, and certainly no later
than 10 February 2012, which is the 20 working day deadline. The deadline
is counted from the first working day we receive it, not the date a letter
is written / posted or an email sent.

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, I will
let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you, and you will be
required to pay before we proceed in dealing with your request.

Please quote the above reference number in any communication regarding
this request.

Yours sincerely

Daniel Ellis
Freedom of Information Officer
Governance & Community Services

Tel  : 01273 482913

P  please consider the environment - do you really need to print this
email

This message is intended for the use of the addressee only and may
contain confidential or privileged information. If you have received it in
error please notify the sender and destroy it. You may not use it or copy
it to anyone else.

E-mail is not a secure communications medium. Please be aware of this
when replying. All communications sent to or from the County Council
may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with
relevant legislation.

Although East Sussex County Council has taken steps to ensure that this
e-mail and any attachments are virus free, we can take no responsibility
if a virus is actually present and you are advised to ensure that the
appropriate checks are made.

You can visit our website at http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk

Dear Ms Cooper

FOI Request ref 937/ Cooper/ road hazards

I am writing to advise the outcome of our search for the information you
requested on 12 January.

You asked for information about road hazards. Your specific questions,
together with our response, are set out at the end of this email. Please
note that the information is provided subject to the terms and conditions
set out below.

I hope that this answers your enquiry. If you believe that the County
Council has not complied with the FOI Act in responding to your request,
you may ask for an internal review. If you wish to do so, please set out
the grounds of your appeal in writing to Philip Baker, Assistant Director,
Legal and Democratic Services, East Sussex County Council, County Hall, St
Anne’s Crescent, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1UE, or by email to him at
[1][email address]. Please quote the FOI reference number
in any communication regarding this particular request.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you then
have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot make a decision
unless you have exhausted the County Council’s internal review procedure
as described in the previous paragraph. The Commissioner can be contacted
at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.  Tel: 0303 123 1113.  [2]www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Daniel Ellis

Freedom of Information Officer

East Sussex County Council

C3F, County Hall

St Anne's Crescent

Lewes

East Sussex

BN7 1UE

Phone: 01273 482913    Fax: 01273 481208  

email: [3][email address]   web: [4]www.eastsussex.gov.uk/foi

FOI Request ref 937/ Cooper/ road hazards

Copyright and Re-Use of information

1. This information is supplied for your personal use only. Providing you
with documents under the Freedom of Information Act does not give you an
automatic right to re-use those documents in a way that would infringe
copyright – for example by making multiple copies, or by publishing /
issuing copies to the public.

2. Copyright in the information is owned by East Sussex County Council
and/or its contractor(s) unless otherwise stated. Brief extracts of the
material can be reproduced under the “fair dealing” provisions of the
Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988 (S.29 and S.30) for the purposes of
research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and
news reporting.

3. We do not give permission for this information to be used for the
purposes of direct marketing.

4. If you wish to use this information for commercial purposes then, in
accordance with the Regulations on the Re-use of Public Sector Information
2005, you must first ask our permission. Such re-use may or may not
involve the granting of a licence and the application of a Fee

Request

In relation to road hazards occurring in the County and caused by defects
such as potholes, sunken manhole covers and cracks please will you provide
a dataset in electronic format with columns for:

     - the category of road defect,

     - location (latitude and longitude coordinates),

     - date reported,

     - date inspected

     - and the date fixed

that includes data for the last three years being 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Response

Some of the information requested is provided below from our reporting
database. The remainder of your request will not be processed. This is
because I estimate that the cost of complying with the request as it
stands considerably exceeds the “appropriate limit”. Unfortunately this
information is not held in such a way that we can readily access the
information you are seeking. The only way we could locate and extract the
information would be to manually update all enquiries, and I estimate that
the time taken to conduct such an exercise is likely to take considerably
more than the 'appropriate limit' (18 hours or £450 of staff time) in
Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This constitutes a
formal refusal under section 12 FOI. This exemption is set out at the end
of this email, together with our detailed response.

Exemptions

Section 12 FOI Act

(1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a
request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of
complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

Extract from the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit)
Regulations 2004

Regulation 3

3.—(1) This regulation has effect to prescribe the appropriate limit
referred to in section 9A(3) and (4) of the 1998 Act and the appropriate
limit referred to in section 12(1) and (2) of the 2000 Act.

(2) In the case of a public authority which is listed in Part I of
Schedule 1 to the 2000 Act, the appropriate limit is £600.

(3) In the case of any other public authority, the appropriate limit is
£450.

Regulation 4

4.—(1) This regulation has effect in any case in which a public authority
proposes to estimate whether the cost of complying with a relevant request
would exceed the appropriate limit.

(2) A relevant request is any request to the extent that it is a request–

(a) for unstructured personal data within the meaning of section 9A(1) of
the 1998 Act([5]1), and to which section 7(1) of that Act would, apart
from the appropriate limit, to any extent apply, or

(b) information to which section 1(1) of the 2000 Act would, apart from
the appropriate limit, to any extent apply.

(3) In a case in which this regulation has effect, a public authority may,
for the purpose of its estimate, take account only of the costs it
reasonably expects to incur in relation to the request in–

(a) determining whether it holds the information,

(b) locating the information, or a document which may contain the
information,

(c) retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the
information, and

(d) extracting the information from a document containing it.

(4) To the extent to which any of the costs which a public authority takes
into account are attributable to the time which persons undertaking any of
the activities mentioned in paragraph (3) on behalf of the authority are
expected to spend on those activities, those costs are to be estimated at
a rate of £25 per person per hour.

<<Safety Inspection Recording 2011.xls>> <<Safety Inspection Recording
2010.xls>> <<Safety Inspection Recording 2009.xls>>

– response ends –

This message is intended for the use of the addressee only and may
contain confidential or privileged information. If you have received it in
error please notify the sender and destroy it. You may not use it or copy
it to anyone else.

E-mail is not a secure communications medium. Please be aware of this
when replying. All communications sent to or from the County Council
may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with
relevant legislation.

Although East Sussex County Council has taken steps to ensure that this
e-mail and any attachments are virus free, we can take no responsibility
if a virus is actually present and you are advised to ensure that the
appropriate checks are made.

You can visit our website at http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk

References

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4. file://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/foi
5. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/...