Solicitors' correspondence regarding busway
Dear Cambridgeshire County Council,
Regarding the Busway contract and the report to Cabinet (agenda item no.9 dated 16th March 2010).
Please copies of of all correspondence between BNL and the Council sent or received by solicitors (whether BNL's or the Council's).
If this is too voluminous for a FOI request, please provide a list of the correspondence.
Yours faithfully,
Ian Jackson
Dear Mr Jackson,
Please find attached Cambridgeshire County Council's response to your
request for information.
Please contact me if I can be of any further assistance to you.
Kind regards
Sarah Priestley
Information Governance Officer
Information Governance
<<614607_Jackson_2010_03_25_Response.pdf>>
From: Ian Jackson [[FOI #30405 email]]
Sent: 09 March 2010 14:38
To: FOI
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Solicitors' correspondence
regarding busway
Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Red
Dear Cambridgeshire County Council,
Regarding the Busway contract and the report to Cabinet (agenda
item no.9 dated 16th March 2010).
Please copies of of all correspondence between BNL and the Council
sent or received by solicitors (whether BNL's or the Council's).
If this is too voluminous for a FOI request, please provide a list
of the correspondence.
Yours faithfully,
Ian Jackson
Dear Cambridgeshire County Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Cambridgeshire County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Solicitors' correspondence regarding busway'.
You appear to have misunderstood my request: I am not requesting any information which is not already known to BAM Nuttall. As a result, you refuse on two grounds, both of which are wrong. My grounds for appeal are as follows:
1. The first reason you give is that you claim that the material is covered by legal professional privilege. This is not correct. Legal professional privilege protects correspondence between a solicitor and their client. I am not requesting correspondence between the Council and the Council's solicitors. I am requesting correspondence between the Council and BAM Nuttall, which is not covered by legal professional privilege.
2. In any case, legal professional privilege is binding on the solicitor but not the client. Therefore the council is not "unable" to provide the information, as you suggest. Rather the council is free to disclose legally privileged information such as the legal advice it has received, if it chooses to do so; and it must choose to do so, or not, in accordance with the FOI legislation, relying on appropriate exemptions if the information should not be disclosed. But I emphasise that the information I am requesting does not fall into this category.
3. Secondly, you claim that disclosing this information would adversely affect the course of justice etc. You don't explain clearly which particular course of justice might be adversely affected. This is in itself a ground for appeal against the decision not to disclose - the reasons are inadequately explained. You should have explained which potential court cases, disputes, inquiries, etc., might be affected.
4. However in context I infer that the problem is potential forthcoming litigation against BAM Nuttall by the Council. If this is the case then disclosing this material to the public could not damage the Council's case in court, or prejudice its negotiations with BAM Nuttall, since BAM Nuttall already have all of the correspondence I'm requesting.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/so...
Yours faithfully,
Ian Jackson
Dear Priestley Sarah,
I requested this internal review in March. The review is long overdue according to ICO guidance. Please can you find out what has happened to it and let me know.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Jackson
Dear Mr Jackson,
Thank for your email.
Please accept my apologies for the delay in our response.
Unfortunately, the request for review appears to have been overlooked,
due to a team restructure. Please be assured that I am giving it my full
attention and will ensure you have a response to your review request by
August 27th.
Please let me know if you have any further questions and once again,
please accept my apologies for the oversight. I hope this hasn't caused
any inconvenience.
Kind regards.
Sarah.
Sarah Priestley
Information Governance Manager
Information Governance
Cambridgeshire County Council
RES1405
Shire Hall
Castle Hill
Cambridge
CB3 0AP
Dear Mr Jackson,
Please find attached Cambridgeshire County Council's response to your
request for information.
Please contact me if I can be of any further assistance to you.
Kind regards
Sandra Taylor
Corporate Information Manager
Information Strategy Team
<<614607_Jackson_2010_08_23_Review response.pdf>>
From: Ian Jackson [[FOI #30405 email]]
Sent: 26 March 2010 11:36
To: FOI
Subject: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - Solicitors'
correspondence regarding busway
Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Yellow
Dear Cambridgeshire County Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Cambridgeshire County
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Solicitors' correspondence
regarding busway'.
You appear to have misunderstood my request: I am not requesting
any information which is not already known to BAM Nuttall. As a
result, you refuse on two grounds, both of which are wrong. My
grounds for appeal are as follows:
1. The first reason you give is that you claim that the material is
covered by legal professional privilege. This is not correct. Legal
professional privilege protects correspondence between a solicitor
and their client. I am not requesting correspondence between the
Council and the Council's solicitors. I am requesting
correspondence between the Council and BAM Nuttall, which is not
covered by legal professional privilege.
2. In any case, legal professional privilege is binding on the
solicitor but not the client. Therefore the council is not "unable"
to provide the information, as you suggest. Rather the council is
free to disclose legally privileged information such as the legal
advice it has received, if it chooses to do so; and it must choose
to do so, or not, in accordance with the FOI legislation, relying
on appropriate exemptions if the information should not be
disclosed. But I emphasise that the information I am requesting
does not fall into this category.
3. Secondly, you claim that disclosing this information would
adversely affect the course of justice etc. You don't explain
clearly which particular course of justice might be adversely
affected. This is in itself a ground for appeal against the
decision not to disclose - the reasons are inadequately explained.
You should have explained which potential court cases, disputes,
inquiries, etc., might be affected.
4. However in context I infer that the problem is potential
forthcoming litigation against BAM Nuttall by the Council. If this
is the case then disclosing this material to the public could not
damage the Council's case in court, or prejudice its negotiations
with BAM Nuttall, since BAM Nuttall already have all of the
correspondence I'm requesting.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/so...
Yours faithfully,
Ian Jackson
Ganesh Sittampalam left an annotation ()
You could also try appealing the DN on the basis that you were misled into withdrawing that aspect of your complaint and that the ICO should really have ruled on it properly.
Dear Mr Jackson
Please find attached the following information regarding the recent
Information Commissioner's Office Decision Notice relating to this
request.
Yours sincerely
Matthew Smith
Information Governance Officer
Cambridgeshire County Council
<<FOI_614607_IcoInfo.pdf>> <<FOI_614607_Email15.pdf>>
<<FOI_614607_Email01.pdf>> <<FOI_614607_Email02.pdf>>
<<FOI_614607_Email03.pdf>> <<FOI_614607_Email04.pdf>>
<<FOI_614607_Email05.pdf>> <<FOI_614607_Email06.pdf>>
<<FOI_614607_Email07.pdf>> <<FOI_614607_Email08.pdf>>
<<FOI_614607_Email09.pdf>> <<FOI_614607_Email10.pdf>>
<<FOI_614607_Email11.pdf>> <<FOI_614607_Email12.pdf>>
<<FOI_614607_Email13.pdf>> <<FOI_614607_Email14.pdf>>
The information in this email is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. If you receive this email by mistake please notify the sender and delete it immediately. Opinions expressed are those of the individual and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Cambridgeshire County Council. All sent and received email from Cambridgeshire County Council is automatically scanned for the presence of computer viruses and security issues.
Dear Mr Jackson
Please find attached the following information regarding the recent
Information Commissioner's Office Decision Notice relating to this
request.
Yours sincerely
Matthew Smith
Information Governance Officer
Cambridgeshire County Council
<<FOI_614607_IcoInfo2.pdf>> <<FW Supplemental Agreement
TH-LITG.FID62164 21.pdf>> <<FW CGB - Performance Bond.pdf>> <<FW CGB -
Performance Bond TH-LITG.FID62164.pdf>> <<FW CGB Sectional completion -
draft agreement.pdf>> <<FW CGB Sectional completion - draft agreement
1.pdf>> <<FW CGB Sectional completion - draft agreement 3.pdf>> <<FW
CGB Sectional completion - draft agreement TH-LITG.FID62164 4.pdf>>
<<FW CGB Sectional completion - draft agreement TH-LITG.FID62164 5.pdf>>
<<FW CGB Sectional completion - draft agreement TH-LITG.FID62164 6
.pdf>> <<FW CGB Sectional completion - draft agreement TH-LITG.FID62164
7.pdf>> <<FW CGB Sectional completion - draft agreement
TH-LITG.FID62164 8.pdf>> <<FW CGB Sectional completion - draft
agreement TH-LITG.FID62164 9.pdf>> <<FW Mr Elven.pdf>> <<FW
Supplemental Agreement TH-LITG.FID62164 19.pdf>> <<FW Supplemental
Agreement TH-LITG.FID62164 20.pdf>> <<Supplemental Agreement Amended by
BDB on 22.10.2009.pdf>> <<DOC.pdf>> <<LITG_1270301_1.pdf>> <<Note on
draft agreement submitted by BDB on the 5th November 2009.pdf>>
<<Supplemental Agreement 05.11.2009 without tracking.pdf>>
<<Supplemental Agreement 15.10.2009 amended 05.11.2009.pdf>>
<<Supplemental Agreement 15.10.2009 amended 05.11.2009 re-amended
06.11.2009.pdf>>
The information in this email is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. If you receive this email by mistake please notify the sender and delete it immediately. Opinions expressed are those of the individual and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Cambridgeshire County Council. All sent and received email from Cambridgeshire County Council is automatically scanned for the presence of computer viruses and security issues.
Dear Mr Smith
Thanks for your very substantial reply. Also, thank you for your clarifying note. I appreciate that you didn't want to send multiple copies of the same attachment.
However, I'm finding it difficult to ascertain which of the attachment documents you've sent me were attached to which of the emails. I assume you do have that information, but your conversion of the email chains to pdfs seems to have lost it.
Could you get back to me on this point please? Thanks in advance.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Jackson
Dear Mr Jackson
I have attached a spreadsheet which will hopefully clarify exactly how
each attachment fits together with the corresponding e-mails, and where
the same documents are mentioned in different files as they are part of
the same e-mail thread. This spreadsheet is a slightly modified version
(i.e. without abbreviations) of the one I put together to make sure each
unique attachment was provided to you.
I've numbered each e-mail file from 1 to 15 in the spreadsheet,
alongside the corresponding file name, and have included blank rows to
demarcate the four distinct e-mail threads they are part of. When I
make a reference to a file in the Notes column (e.g. 'Just the 3
documents referred to in the thread covered by file 3 and the 1 document
referred to in file 7'), those numbered references relate to the numbers
in the File No. column of the spreadsheet.
As an example of the duplication, files 3 to 11 are part of the same
thread started by the e-mail of Thu Nov 05 16.47:18 2009. That original
e-mail included 3 attached documents, so effectively they are mentioned
in files 4 to 11 as well, but we have only supplied the 3 documents
once.
I hope this clarifies the situation. Once again, please let me know if
not.
Yours sincerely
Matthew Smith
Information Governance Officer
Cambridgeshire County Council
Dear Mr Smith,
Thanks, that looks like the information I wanted.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Jackson
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Ian Jackson left an annotation ()
This request is now the subject of a Decision Notice by the Information Commissioner, FER0347465.
http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/...
My complaint was substantially upheld.
However, earlier I had accepted, in correspondence with the ICO, that correspondence which formed part of settlement negotiations (normally marked "without prejudice" in legal proceedings) could be excluded from my request.
Looking at the notice I infer that the County and BAM Nuttall have marked much more of the correspondence "without prejudice" than might be appropriate. The ICO have advised me that in order to address that I would need to file a new request. So:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/bu...
Another 18-month wait I guess :-/