Dear Mr Davies,
 
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) – REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
 
The City of London (CoL), sometimes also called the City of London
Corporation, acknowledges receipt of your two identical requests for
information of 17 April 2018, below, which are being managed as one
request.
 
Please note that, although the WDTK site lists the CoL at two places –
[1]http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/city_...
[2]http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/commo...
- where your identical requests are listed, the CoL is in fact only one
legal entity. We have informed the WDTK website of this and explained that
it would be less confusing for applicants if the site referred to the CoL
under one name instead of maintaining two lists and two names for the same
legal entity, but it has declined to make the change. For further
clarification of the position of the CoL under the FOIA, please see
Paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 of the FOIA, which describes the CoL as being
subject to the FOIA with regard to 'The Common Council of the City of
London, in respect of information held in its capacity as a local
authority, police authority or port health authority'.
 
Public authorities are required to respond to requests within the
statutory timescale of 20 working days beginning from the first working
day after they receive a request. The Act does not always require public
authorities to disclose the information which they hold.
 
The FOIA applies to the CoL as a local authority, police authority and
port health authority. The CoL is the local and police authority for the
“Square Mile”, ie the historic City of London, and not for London as a
whole. Please see the following page containing a link to a map (Explore
the City), which shows the local authority area covered by the CoL:
[3]https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/maps/Pag....
The CoL’s port health authority functions extend beyond the City boundary.
For further information please see: [4]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk.
 
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Compliance (FOI)
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1209
[5]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
 
 
 

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Davies,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) - INFORMATION REQUEST

Following your requests for information of 17 April 2018 and our
acknowledgement of 18 April 2018 the City of London (CoL) responds as
follows:

1.What is the most recent available value of the local authority's pension
fund? The attached Excel workbook details the audited holdings of the
Pension Fund as at 31 March 2017.

2. What is the value of the fund’s directly-held investment in shares or
bonds of the following companies: British American Tobacco, Imperial
Brands, Japan Tobacco International, Altria Group Inc, Philip Morris
International, Universal Corp, Alliance One International? £0

3. What is the total combined value of the fund’s directly-held
investments in the companies named above? £0

4. What income did the fund receive from these investments in the last
12-month period for which records are available? £0

5. Does the fund have any other investments in tobacco via pooled
investments? What is the value of these? Please refer to column F of the
attached Excel workbook

6. What is the local authority’s annual spend on smoking-related illness?
£0. For your information, the CoL does not incur direct expenditure on
smoking related illnesses but does undertake preventive publicity as part
of its Public Health function, which is entirely reimbursed by central
government. The gross cost of this publicity is estimated at £325,000 in
2017/18 and £365,000 in 2018/19.

7. Please supply the number of deaths attributable to smoking in the local
authority areas covered by your pension fund. Your Director of Public
Health or equivalent should be able to supply this figure. The CoL has on
average 33.2 deaths per year (source: Primary Care Mortality Database).
The Global Burden of Disease study identifies the underlying factors to
which deaths in Greater London can be attributed – this puts tobacco use
at 18.1%. Therefore, the CoL estimates that 6 deaths are attributable to
smoking, on average, per year in the CoL resident population.

If you have any queries or concerns, please contact me.

If you wish to make a complaint about the way the CoL has managed your
enquiry, please make your complaint in writing to email address:
[1][email address]. For a link to the CoL’s FOI complaints
procedure, please visit the following page:
[2]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Feedback, at the end of which is located the
FOI complaints procedure. If, having used the CoL’s FOI Complaints
Procedure, you are still dissatisfied, you may request the Information
Commissioner to investigate. Please contact: Information Commissioner,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Telephone:
(01625) 545700.  Website: [3]http://www.ico.org.uk/ .

The FOIA applies to the CoL as a local authority, police authority and
port health authority.

The CoL holds the copyright in this communication. Its supply does not
give a right to re-use in a way that would infringe that copyright, for
example, by making copies, publishing and issuing copies to the public or
to any other person. Brief extracts of any of the material may be
reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for
non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and news
reporting, subject to an acknowledgement of the copyright owner.

Yours sincerely,

Access to Information Network Representative

Chamberlain's Department

City of London

Tel: 020 7332 1384

Website: [4]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

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please notify the sender immediately and then delete this e-mail.
Opinions, advice or facts included in this message are given without any
warranties or intention to enter into a contractual relationship with the
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potentially the subject of monitoring. All liability for errors and
viruses is excluded. Please note that in so far as the City of London
falls within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the
Environmental Information Regulations 2004, it may need to disclose this
e-mail. Website: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

References

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