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Safer Streets Fund

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Dear Croydon Borough Council,

Please provide the bidding documents and the response from the Home Office regarding the £165k grant from the Safer Streets fund.

Yours faithfully,

Thomas Richards

croydon@infreemation.co.uk, Croydon Borough Council

Information Team Croydon
Digital Services
Assistant Chief Executive Directorate
Bernard Wetherill House
7th Floor, Zone B
Croydon
CR0 1EA

Contact: Information Team
[Croydon Borough Council request email]

 

NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email. If
you have a processing request, please ensure you quote that reference in
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Dear Thomas Richards

 

Freedom of information request - FOI/8664

 

Subject: FOI - bidding documents for safer streets fund

Your request is being considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of
any exemptions. Where consideration is being given to exemptions the 20
working day timescale may be extended to a period considered reasonable
depending on the nature and circumstances of your request. In such cases
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If we are unable to provide you with the information requested we will
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Please note that the directorate team may contact you for further
information where we believe that the request is not significantly clear
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Kind Regard

Information Management Team

 

Croydon Digital Services

Assistant Chief Executive Directorate

 

7th Floor, Zone B

Bernard Weatherill House

8 Mint Walk

Croydon CR0 1EA

croydon@infreemation.co.uk, Croydon Borough Council

Information Team Croydon
Digital Services
Assistant Chief Executive Directorate
Bernard Wetherill House
7th Floor, Zone B
Croydon
CR0 1EA

Contact: Information Team
[Croydon Borough Council request email]

 

Dear Thomas Richards

Request FOI/8664

Further to your request received on 13/11/2023, I confirm that the Council
has now considered your request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000. Specifically, you have requested the following information:

Dear Croydon Borough Council,

Please provide the bidding documents and the response from the Home Office
regarding the £165k grant from the Safer Streets fund.

The Council considers the information requested to be commercially
sensitive information and covered by the exemption provided in Section 43
of Freedom of Information Act.  This exemption applies to information
which if disclosed would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial
interests of any person, including the Council, as this is a bidding
application which we collated in partnership with the police, and we are
also in the process of designing application forms for VCS organisations
to apply for funding. 

It is important to remember that when information is released under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000, it is considered released to the wider
public. Seeing the bid early could therefore result in you or certain
members/organisations having an advantage over other partners who
apply.  In deciding whether to apply this exemption the Council is
expected to balance the public interest test in withholding the
information against the public interest in disclosing the information.

Although there is always a clear case for transparency of council spend
and in informing the public how the council allocates taxpayer’s
resources, the information is considered, by the Council, to be
commercially sensitive as its disclosure would, or would be likely to,
prejudice the commercial interests of the Council, as it is considered
that if the information is disclosed to you it could potentially weaken
the Council ability to obtain value for money in respect of any future
purchases of this type, as it could give a competitive edge to bidders if
they were in receipt of the information before it is ready for general
release.

The Council publishes Access to Information requests and responses on its
online Disclosure Log. (Any request included within this log will be
anonymised appropriately)

To view the Council’s Disclosure Log, please visit our website available
here:

[1]The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act | Croydon Council
(disclosure-log.co.uk)

 

If you are dissatisfied with the way the Council has handled your request
under the Freedom of Information Act, you may ask for an internal review.
This should be submitted to us within 40 working days of this response.
You can do this by outlining the details of your complaint by:

 

Email:        [2][Croydon Borough Council request email]

 

Writing:     Information Team

London Borough of Croydon

Bernard Weatherill House

Floor 7 - Zone B

8 Mint Walk

Croydon, CR0 1EA

 

Any requests received after the 40 working day time limit will be
considered only at the discretion of the council.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire, SK9 5AF

 

Yours sincerely,
 

Information Team

Croydon Digital Services

Assistant Chief Executive Directorate

Bernard Wetherill House,

Mint Walk,

Croydon,

CR0 1EA

 

 

[3][Croydon Borough Council request email]

[4][email address]

 

References

Visible links
1. https://croydon.disclosure-log.co.uk/
2. mailto:[Croydon Borough Council request email]
3. mailto:[Croydon Borough Council request email]
4. mailto:[email address]

Dear Croydon Borough Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Croydon Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Safer Streets Fund'.

1. You have made no attempt to provide information - such as what projects was the bid supposed to fund, and what projects the funders agreed to. This could have been provided without financials (if there was a genuine threat to commercial interests which, frankly, I don't believe). You also haven't provided specifics for the projects that organisations are to bid against which would be, I assume, part of the original bidding document.

2. This is not seeing the bid early - a bid for funding has been made, and funding has been agreed. We know there is an amount in the region of £165,000 but don't know what this is for specifically.

3. There's a certain irony here given how much money the council spunks up the wall that suddenly best value for the taxpayer becomes a consideration!

I look forward to Browne Jacobsen conducting a full review at the taxpayers expense and the eventual release of the data.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/s...

Yours faithfully,

Thomas Richards

Passman, Howard,

1 Attachment

Dear Thomas Richards

 

Further to your email dated 13 December 2023, in which you requested an
Internal Review of the Council’s response to your request for information
made under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA), I have now concluded
this review and I am able to reply as follows.

 

In your request for Internal Review, you asked the Council to reconsider
your request as you believed that you had not been provided with the
information requested.

 

In your request for information dated 13 November 2023,  you requested the
following information:

 

“Please provide the bidding documents and the response from the Home
Office regarding the £165k grant from the Safer Streets fund.”

 

The Council responded to you on the 11 December 2023 and provided the
following response:

 

“The Council considers the information requested to be commercially
sensitive information and covered by the exemption provided in Section 43
of Freedom of Information Act.  This exemption applies to information
which if disclosed would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial
interests of any person, including the Council, as this is a bidding
application which we collated in partnership with the police, and we are
also in the process of designing application forms for VCS organisations
to apply for funding.

 

It is important to remember that when information is released under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000, it is considered released to the wider
public. Seeing the bid early could therefore result in you or certain
members/organisations having an advantage over other partners who apply. 
In deciding whether to apply this exemption the Council is expected to
balance the public interest test in withholding the information against
the public interest in disclosing the information.

 

Although there is always a clear case for transparency of council spend
and in informing the public how the council allocates taxpayer’s
resources, the information is considered, by the Council, to be
commercially sensitive as its disclosure would, or would be likely to,
prejudice the commercial interests of the Council, as it is considered
that if the information is disclosed to you it could potentially weaken
the Council ability to obtain value for money in respect of any future
purchases of this type, as it could give a competitive edge to bidders if
they were in receipt of the information before it is ready for general
release.”

 

In your request for an Internal Review dated 13 December 2023, you stated
the following:

 

“1. You have made no attempt to provide information - such as what
projects was the bid supposed to fund, and what projects the funders
agreed to.  This could have been provided without financials (if there was
a genuine threat to commercial interests which, frankly, I don't believe).
You also haven't provided specifics for the projects that organisations
are to bid against which would be, I assume, part of the original bidding
document.

 

2. This is not seeing the bid early - a bid for funding has been made, and
funding has been agreed.  We know there is an amount in the region of
£165,000 but don't know what this is for specifically. 

 

3. There's a certain irony here given how much money the council spunks up
the wall that suddenly best value for the taxpayer becomes a
consideration!” 

 

On receiving your request for an Internal Review, I contacted the Head of
the Violence Reduction Network, who has provided additional information in
answer to the issues raised in your Internal Review.

 

I have been informed that the projects funded are aimed at targeting
individuals who are between the age of 10-18 years and are involved or at
risk of becoming involved in criminal activity.

 

At the time of writing the Council has not engaged any specific partners
to support the Project.

 

Having carefully considered the information within the Bid Document and
the Council considers that that it contains information that is exempt
from disclosure under the exemption provided under Section 31(1)(a), as
disclosure would prejudice the prevention of crime. The Bid Document
contains information provided by the Police, based upon Police tasking
data and intelligence.  As such to release this information into the
public domain would be prejudicial to the prevention of crime.

 

The Council considers that its ability to work with the Police and others,
to divert potential individuals away from acquisitive, crime, and other
potential offences would be prejudiced should the Bid Document be
provided. As previously stated, includes Police intelligence and other
related information providing details not only of the projects details but
also the nature of those targeted by the proposed interventions.  The
provision of this information would be likely hinder the Council ability
to engage with these individuals and successfully divert them from crime. 
As such this would undermine the aim and purpose of the Safer Streets
programme.  Given the nature of the programme and the individuals who
would be targeted this is a likely consequence if the requested
information was provided to you.

 

After taking the above into account the Council considers that it would
not be in the public interest to provide the requested information to
you.  While there is an obvious public interest in who public authorities
use public funds has, to be balanced against the likelihood of such
disclosure prejudicing the Council’s ability to undertake work of this
nature.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of the Internal Review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Howard Passman

020 8726 6000 ext. 27103

 

 

Resources Directorate

Legal Services Division

12th Floor
Bernard Weatherill House

8 Mint Walk

Croydon CR0 1EA

 

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Thomas Richards please sign in and let everyone know.