Stoke Lodge Playing Fields and Cotham School

The request was refused by Bristol City Council.

Dear Bristol City Council,

Please provide:
Copies of any emails or letters or meeting notes since tthe 27th of August 2019 between Bristol City Council and Cotham School (including any representatives acting for the school such as Governors and or planning consultants) in relation to:
• The Pavilion Building at Stoke Lodge Playing Fields, Stoke Bishop.
• The ‘Maintenance Hut’ at Stoke Lodge Playing Fields
The lease of the playing fields

My query relates specifically to any correspondence or communications with regard to the
• Rejection of the appeal with the Planning Inspectorate
• Any communication regarding developing/ adapting/ building or fixing the two buildings aforementioned
• Any communications regarding works proposed, planned or queried with or without planning permission
• Any communications with regard to the Trees on the site
• Any communications with regard to asbestos at the site
• Any communications regarding landlord consent for works
• Any communications regarding transport arrangements/ plans/ issues.

Kind regards
Emma Burges

Bristol City Council

 
Dear Ms Burges
 
Freedom of Information Act 2000
 
 
Thank you for your request for information that was received on 3 January
2020.
 
We are dealing with your request and we aim to send a response by 31
January 2020.
 
If you have any further queries about your request please contact
[1][email address].
 
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
Customer Relations Team
 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.
 
Bristol City Council
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Dear Ms Burges
 
Thank you for your request for information received on 3 January 2020.
 
Please find attached our response to your request.
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
Bristol City Council
 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.
 
Bristol City Council
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which may be legally privileged and/or subject to the provisions of
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Dear Bristol City Council,
Ref:4005642

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Bristol City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Stoke Lodge Playing Fields and Cotham School'.

You have refused this request on the premise that it will take over 18 hours to collate the information.
I am writing to ask you to complete an internal review before I place this with the ICO. I do not believe that it will take 18 hours to collate this information on the basis that:
• The correspondence ( primarily emails) will all be held between two BCC departments and one named third party; Cotham School
• You have previously responded to the exact same request (CRN00237769) and complied providing the information – this is simply a request for the same between more recent dates
• This is ongoing high-profile matter and it is reasonable to expect that BCC’s planning and education property services team will have a case file for Cotham school on this matter and will not require to search across departments, colleagues and large numbers of sources for this information- it would be highly concerning if it did.
• The scope of my request is narrow in that it relates to correspondence regarding one tenant on one leased parcel of land in a single location
• The scope of my request does not require any analysis, data collection- it simply requests a copy of correspondence regarding proposed works at a single site
Please review this request as a matter of urgency. The notification that it would take too long to collate the information was issued after the FOI response was due.

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

Kind regards

Emma Burgess

Dear Bristol City Council,

This FOI was placed for internal review in February. Appreciating the extreme pressures on our council resources bought on by the the Pandemic I have not chased for 8 months. However I now consider that there should be a reasonable time limit of 20 days to receive a full response and discourse or I will have no choice but to place the matter with the ICO.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Burgess

Bristol City Council

 
Dear Ms Burges
 
Freedom of Information Act 2000
 
Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to your review
request. We are still looking into your case and hope to have a response
for you shortly.
 
Yours Sincerely
 
 
Customer Relations Team

 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.
 
Bristol City Council
This email contains proprietary confidential information some or all of
which may be legally privileged and/or subject to the provisions of
privacy legislation. It is intended solely for the addressee. If you are
not the intended recipient, an addressing or transmission error has
misdirected this e-mail; you must not use, disclose, copy, print or
disseminate the information contained within this e-mail. Please notify
the author immediately by replying to this email. Any views expressed in
this email are those of the individual sender, except where the sender
specifically states these to be the views of Bristol City Council.
 
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Dear Bristol City Council,

This request is now significantly overdue. Please provide this information soonest.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Burgess

Bristol City Council

Dear Miss Burges

Further to our e-mail to you of 28 October 2020, we are still not in a
position to respond due both to current remote working arrangements and
also staff sickness.  We will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

I acknowledge that your original request for an internal review was
received in February 2020. Due to the unprecedented times the council was
adapting to new ways of working and diverting resources to deal with the
COVID pandemic.  Some councils suspended all information requests to focus
resources on fighting the public health crisis - Bristol did not and
continued to accept requests and deal with them as best they could. The
Information Commissioner published a document "The ICO's regulatory
approach during the coronavirus public
health emergency"
- [1]https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/p...

The document sets out the ICO's understanding and approach to the
difficulties being faced by local authorities at this time - among other
things it specifically addresses the issues faced by local authorities in
responding to FOI.  Whilst I understand your frustration in waiting for a
response to your request, I find the council were operating under
extremely testing conditions and are doing their best to respond. 
However, I acknowledge this is outside of the appropriate timeframes and
below our usual service level standards. 

Regarding the continued delay of our Internal Review response I apologise
on behalf of the council.  I can reassure you that I am still looking into
your request and would kindly to ask you to bear with us.
 
Yours Sincerely 
 
Data Protection Team

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Dear Bristol City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Bristol City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Stoke Lodge Playing Fields and Cotham School'.

Whilst I appreciate there are delays this has been overdue for over a year.

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,

Emma Burgess

Dear Bristol City Council,

I have now referred this to the ICO. Whilst I appreciate that C-19 has caused challenges, I feel that waiting over 13 months for an internal review is excessive.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Burgess

Bristol City Council

Dear Miss Burgess
 
Thank you for your email. We confirm that we have had contact from the
ICO.   
 
Unfortunately due to staff absence we are still not in a position to issue
a response at this time. Our records indicate that an internal review
response was issued in July 2020 however we can find no copy of the same.
The officer who handled the internal review has since left the council. 
 
In the circumstances, we saw it fit to undertake a fresh internal review.
However due to sickness absence and Covid pressures, these  have
compounded our ability to send out a response in a timely fashion.
 
Please accept our sincere apologies regarding the delay in this matter. I
can assure you that Bristol City Council is committed to meet its
statutory obligations in processing requests in accordance with
Information Rights legislation as quickly as possible, where priorities
and resources allow. However there has inevitably been long delays in
processing some of these requests.

I understand that you have exercised considerable patience thus far in
waiting for a response. It would be unreasonable to expect you to continue
waiting.  We will be in a position to send out a response to you by Friday
14 May 2021. 

Kind regards 

 
Freedom of Information Team

show quoted sections

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
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Dear Bristol City Council,

The ICO advised on the 16th of April that they had written to you and advised the information must be provided within 10 days. Ref IC 94477-K9P2.

You wrote and advised that the ICO had not been in touch however the information would be provided by the 14th May.

I will now refer this back to the ICO as neither of these requirements has been met.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Burgess

Bristol City Council

 
Dear Ms Burges

 

Our ref 4005642– internal review response

 

I am writing in response to your concerns about Bristol City Council’s
handling of your request for information received on 03 January 2020 and
which was responded to on 3 February 2020. 

First, please accept my apologies for the time it has taken for me to
conclude the internal review.  For the avoidance of doubt, I would like
to confirm that I was not involved in any way in your original request for
information and I am acting as an independent reviewer of it
with authority to alter the response to the original request
if appropriate.   
 

Your request asked for the following information:

“Please provide:

Copies of any emails or letters or meeting notes since tthe 27th of August
2019 between Bristol City Council and Cotham School (including any
representatives acting for the school such as Governors and or planning
consultants) in relation to:
* The Pavilion Building at Stoke Lodge Playing Fields, Stoke Bishop.
* The 'Maintenance Hut' at Stoke Lodge Playing Fields
The lease of the playing fields
My query relates specifically to any correspondence or communications with
regard to the
* Rejection of the appeal with the Planning Inspectorate
* Any communication regarding developing/ adapting/ building or fixing the
two buildings aforementioned
* Any communications regarding works proposed, planned or queried with or
without planning permission
* Any communications with regard to the Trees on the site
* Any communications with regard to asbestos at the site
* Any communications regarding landlord consent for works
* Any communications regarding transport arrangements/ plans/ issues.”

 

Original decision

Bristol City Council responded to your request on 3 February 2020 to
confirm that we hold information that falls in scope of your request.
However, Bristol City Council relied on an exemption under section 12 of
the FOI Act, that the information you requested would exceed the
appropriate limit (currently £450 for Bristol City Council).

 

Internal review request

On 3 February 2020 you contacted Bristol City Council to ask for a review
as you did not believe that your request would require 18 hours to collate
this information on the following basis :

“The correspondence ( primarily emails) will all be held between two BCC
departments and one named third party; Cotham School
• You have previously responded to the exact same request (CRN00237769)
and complied providing the information – this is simply a request for the
same between more recent dates
• This is ongoing high-profile matter and it is reasonable to expect that
BCC’s planning and education property services team will have a case file
for Cotham school on this matter and will not require to search across
departments, colleagues and large numbers of sources for this information-
it would be highly concerning if it did.
• The scope of my request is narrow in that it relates to correspondence
regarding one tenant on one leased parcel of land in a single location
• The scope of my request does not require any analysis, data collection-
it simply requests a copy of correspondence regarding proposed works at a
single site”

 

Internal review

When considering the original request, the officer who dealt with the
request incorrectly treated it as a request under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).  As the request was for correspondence,
communications and notes , on planning , development matters relating the
Playing Fields.   I have considered that the correct regime under which
to 
process the request is in fact, the Environmental Information
Regulations 2004 (EIR 2004).   

In undertaking this review, I considered the EIR 2004, the Information
Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance:  "What is Environmental
Information" and any relevant tribunal decisions. Regulation 2(1)(c) of
the EIR 2004 provides that environmental information includes any
information on measures (including administrative measures), such as
policies, legislation, plans, programmes, environmental agreements, and
activities affecting or likely to affect land.  In its guidance, the ICO
confirms that information that affects or is  likely to affect   
the use (my emphasis) and therefore the state of the
land shouldspspconsidered under EIR 2004 rather than under FOIA.   
 

I also considered the first tier tribunal case,  Department for Education
v Information Commissioner (EA/2013/0107 & 0108) (17 October 2013).  In
that case the tribunal was considering information relating to a
Department for Education approval of consent to a local
authority to dispose of a former school site.  The tribunal found that if
the approval was granted, that would result in the redevelopment
of the land, and the redevelopment wouldspsplikely
to affect the land. The tribunal concluded that, even though the
information may not have a direct effect on the environment, it was still
information  “on” the environment within the meaning of regulation 2(1) of
the EIR 2004.  
 
Based on the above, as your request is for information on matters relating
to a piece of land, I therefore consider that it would be likely to be
information about “measures” affecting the elements of the environment,
and therefore would be environmental information under regulation 2(1)(c).
My conclusion is that your request should have been considered under EIR
2004 rather than FOIA.  
 

This follows therefore that the correct response to your original request
was that Bristol City Council  refused to comply with your request,
pursuant to the exception at regulation 12(4)(b) (the request for
information is manifestly unreasonable) of the EIR.

Regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR – Manifestly Unreasonable.

 Regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR states that a public authority may refuse
to disclose environmental information to the extent that the request for
information is manifestly unreasonable. There is no definition of
‘manifestly unreasonable’ under the EIR, however the ICO guidance is of
the opinion that ‘manifestly’ implies that a request should be obviously
or clearly unreasonable for a public authority to respond to in any other
way than applying this exception.

In this case, the council considers the request is manifestly unreasonable
due to the time and cost of resources necessary to comply with the
request. In applying reg 12(4)(b), the Council has been guided by the cost
limit set out under the Freedom of Information and Data Protection 
Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (the Regulations) which is a
useful benchmark, as a  starting point to assess the reasonableness of
this request.

Whilst the Regulations do not apply under EIR, the ICO has recognised that
“…we take these regulations to give a clear indication of what
Parliament considered to be a reasonable charge for staff time.*”

Section 12 of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged to
comply with a request for information if it estimates that the cost of
complying would exceed the appropriate cost limit. In this case, the cost
limit is £450 as set out in section 3(2) of the Freedom of Information and
Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (‘the Fees
Regulations’). This must be calculated at the rate of £25 per hour,
effectively giving a time limit of 18 hours.  

A public authority is only required to provide a reasonable estimate or
breakdown of costs. Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations states that an
authority, when estimating whether complying with a request would exceed
the appropriate limit, can only take into account the costs it reasonably
expects to incur in:

* determining whether it holds the information;
* locating the information, or documents containing it;
* retrieving the information, or documents containing it; and
* extracting the information from any documents containing it.

I have requested the service area concerned to provide more detail of the
work that would need to be undertaken in order to disclose the requested
information. The service area was also advised to submit a reasonable
estimate or breakdown of costs to assist with the internal review process.

The officer in Education Asset Management Planning (AMP) Team within the

Property Strategy department, was instructed to provide an approximate
breakdown of the cost of retrieving the emails of the staff concerned in
the timeframe and the calculations are as follows:

Detailed Estimate of Cost Required to obtain the Information

(a) “Determining whether we hold the information” – this had already been
done

(b) “Locating emails and documents containing Stoke Lodge information i.e
AMP Property Strategy department only - 1.5 hours = £37.5  

- searching emails of 11 officers across 8 departments, 6 hours = £150

- searching AMP Property Strategy department’s only, manual documents on
Stoke Lodge located in Council Offices- 2hours = £50

 Searching  the Education AMP Team ‘s 1,343 emails- 5 hours = £125  (based
on a key word search “Cotham School” and “Stoke Lodge”  of limited
accounts (in  Education AMP Team within Strategic Property department only
)

 (c) “Retrieving files containing the information” – this would include a
journey to the Council offices as officers are remote working due to the
Covid 19 pandemic.  2.5 hours= £62.50

(d) “Extracting the information from the1,343 emails returned and several
electronic documents , -11 Hours = £275

 Reviewing the documents retrieved 6 hours = £144

Total Hours – 34 hours   Total cost to the Council £850 this would most
likely exceed 18 hours and the cost limit of £450.

This  estimate does not include locating, retrieving and extracting
information from the other 7 service areas which hold the information
within the scope of the request. Additionally, removal of the search
parameters (key word searches) would be likely to increase the costs
involved in the council’s compliance with the request.

Therefore this is his an under-estimate as, until the Council has
retrieved the documents, emails and other information requested, from all
the departments involved the Council is unable to state how many documents
are held and the work required in extracting the required information from
the documents.

It is for these reasons; we feel that the cost or burden of dealing with
this particular request is too great and therefore the exception provided
by reg 12(4)(b) EIR is engaged.

In applying this exception, the Council has considered how proportionate
the burden created by the request would be, and whether complying with the
request would involve an unreasonable diversion of resources from the
provision of public services. Your original request was received in
January 2020 during unprecedented times and whilst the council was
adapting to new ways of working and diverting resources to deal with the
COVID pandemic.  Some councils suspended all information requests to focus
resources on fighting the public health crisis - Bristol did not and
continued to accept requests and deal with them as best they could. The
Information Commissioner published a document "The ICO's regulatory
approach during the coronavirus public 
health emergency"
- [1]https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/p...

The document sets out the ICO's understanding and approach to the
difficulties being faced by local authorities at this time - among other
things it specifically addresses the issues faced by local authorities in
responding to FOI/EIR requests. 

Whilst I understand that our response was not as you expected I find the
council were operating under extremely testing conditions and it would be
unreasonable to place an unreasonable burden to its already stretched
resources.

In consideration of the above I find that the Council was able to rely on
regulation 12(4)(b) in relation to this request. I now proceed to
considering the public interest test.

Factors in favour of disclosing the requested information

The Council took into account the presumption of disclosure under
regulation 12(2) of the EIR.  We recognise that there is a strong public
interest in disclosure of environmental information in general, because
this promotes transparency and accountability for the decisions taken by
public authorities and public expenditure.  In this case the information
sought might potentially increase the Council’s transparency, the public’s
understanding of the actions taken by the Council in relation to Cotham
School and the Playing fields, and of the processes by which it makes its
decisions

Factors in favour of maintaining the exception

The estimated time required to provide the requested information will most
certainly have an impact on the Council’s ability to perform its other
functions. This would place a significant and unreasonable amount of
burden and expense on its resources in order to comply with this request.

The information on the Playing field which is within scope of the request
is not held by one department rather it is held by approximately 8
departments and will involve 11 officers in searching, locating,
retrieving and reviewing the information.  Furthermore, other than
information held in electronic form such as emails there is other
information that is held manually stored in the Council Office Buildings.
Which adds onto the burden in light of the current remote working
arrangements in view of the Covid 19 situation.  It would then require a
single officer leading on the request to review and bring together all of
the information from each department  which would be a significant task.
The estimated cost of the search would be in excess of the appropriate
amount.

There is a strong public interest in the Council being able to carry out
its core functions without the disruption that would be caused by
complying with information requests. This would be burdensome in terms of
both time and resources.

Therefore, in all the circumstances of the case, the Council believes that
the public interest in disclosure is outweighed by the public interest in
not
placing an unreasonable burden, disruption and unwarranted use of its
increasingly limited resources.  I therefore find that the Council is
entitled to rely on regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR on the basis that the
request in its current form is manifestly unreasonable.

Pursuant to the duty to assist albeit under the FOIA regime, the Council
in its response dated 3 February 2020, offered advice and assistance to
you in an attempt to provide you with information. The Council informed
you of how you could refine your request. The Council suggested that you
may wish to narrow the scope of your request by reducing the timeframe and
limiting the type of information or focusing on the information that is
most important to you. However, this resulted further requests for
information and questions from you. 

I therefore find that that BCC has met with its obligations to provide the
you with advice and assistance relating to your request in compliance with
regulation 9(1) of the EIR in this case.

I will now turn to addressing the questions you posed in response to our
attempt to offer of advice and assistance in how we may comply with your
request.

I will address each question in turn.

* The correspondence (primarily emails) will all be held between two BCC
departments and one named third party; Cotham School

This is incorrect as the information within scope of your request is held
between 8 departments. Namely :

* Highways
* Planning,
* Education
* Property
* Parks
* Legal

Additionally as some of the information is held in manual files stored at
the Council office buildings, this would require an officer taking a
journey into the office to search and retrieve the manual files which may
contain the information within the scope of your request

An officer in one service area for example, would take approximately
11hours 20 minutes to review all the 1,343 emails returned on the subject
matter of your request.

* You have previously responded to the exact same request (CRN00237769)
and complied providing the information - this is simply a request for the
same between more recent dates

Indeed your request is the same as  (CRN00237769)  where we provided the
following:

-Agenda Meeting Cotham School plus Bristol City Council Planning June 25
2019

-4 Emails relating to this

-GC Meeting Notes Cotham School re Pavilion 25th June 2019

However, since the last request, the number of issues raised regarding the
Playing Fields and Cotham School has resulted in more information being
generated. The frequency, nature and variety of issues raised relating to
this site has since increased the amount of correspondence, officers and
departments involved.

I can confirm that since then no meetings held between council officers
and representatives of the School

* This is ongoing high-profile matter and it is reasonable to expect that
BCC's planning and education property services team will have a case file
for Cotham school on this matter and will not require to search across
departments, colleagues and large numbers of sources for this information-
it would be highly concerning if it did.

The information on Stoke Lodge is not held as or in a single file. Parts
are held electronically, and parts retained in hard copy, which would
include the retrieval of some records from Council Offices.  Your request
is for information from various departments, we will identify the
departments who will hold the information in scope of your request. You
requested:

correspondence or communications by email or letters , meeting notes with
regard to the:
• Rejection of the appeal with the Planning Inspectorate-

The Planning department would hold this information

There have been two applications made by the school and rejected. The
Planning officers involved in this would have had over a hundred of
complaints and objections about this.

• Any communication regarding developing/ adapting/ building or fixing the
two buildings aforementioned-

This information would be sought from across Planning  department ,
 Building regulations and  Education AMP Team within Strategic Property

• Any communications regarding works proposed, planned or queried with or
without planning permission

Planning department

• Any communications with regard to the Trees on the site

Departments involved would be Parks  and  Planning

• Any communications with regard to asbestos at the site-

Departments involved would be the  Education AMP Team within Strategic
Property

* Any communications regarding landlord consent for works
* This would be Education AMP Team within Strategic Property and Legal
departments
• Any communications regarding transport arrangements/ plans/
issues.e.g Highways?
* The information would be held in Transport,  Education AMP Team within
Strategic Property, Legal and Planning

 

Therefore as illustrated, the information is not held only by planning and
education property services team as you believe. Each of the departments
listed  may have their own case file for Cotham school on this matter and
 therefore will require to search across departments, approximately 11
colleagues and various sources for this information- eg electronic (emails
and from shared network drives) and manual (paper files stored in Council
Offices)

* The scope of my request is narrow in that it relates to correspondence
regarding one tenant on one leased parcel of land in a single location

While it is true that your request it is about one tenant and one parcel. 
However,  the scope of your request is very wide. The information you have
requested relates to information held by a number of council departments
and has involved a number of council officers within those departments.
With Stoke Lodge Playing fields matter being of high interest over a
number of years with various subject matters, this has resulted in a
number of Council departments being involved. Subsequently the burden on
resources would be across all  the identified council departments .

 

* The scope of my request does not require any analysis, data collection-
it simply requests a copy of correspondence regarding proposed works at a
single site

In order to provide you with copies of the correspondence regarding Stoke
Lodge Playing fields this requires the various council officers in the
different department to search their relevant areas for the information,
  locate the information, or documents containing it; retrieving the
information, or documents containing it; and extracting the information
from any documents containing it.

If you were able to refine your request, we would be happy to consider
complying with your refined request subject to any applicable exemptions. 

Decision

We therefore uphold the Council's decision to refuse your request because
Regulations 12(4)(b)  apply and the wider public interest lies in favour
of non-disclosure.

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

 

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF

 

[2]www.ico.org.uk

 

Yours sincerely

‎ ‏

‎Freedom of Information team

Bristol City Council

 

 

 
 
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