Verrus Pay By Phone Parking
Dear Sir or Madam,
My query is around the Verrus system. Can I ask the following:
1. Why did you choose Verrus over other UK pay by phone providers? What assessment process did you use?
2. Does Verrus store customers data within the Data Protection Act?
3. Are Elmbridge Council going to extend pay by phone parking to motorcycles?
4. What is the cost of implementation to Elmbridge Council?
Many thanks.
Yours faithfully,
Gary
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If you have asked for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, you should receive a reply from us within 20 working days. Please look at our website for more details and exceptions to these response times: http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/Council/writ....
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Elmbridge Borough Council
High Street, Civic Centre, Esher
Surrey, KT10 9SD
http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk
Direct Line: 01372 474474
This email, and any attachments, is strictly confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for use by the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender and delete it from your system. The opinions expressed in this email are not necessarily those of Elmbridge Borough Council.
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Dear Mr Sawyer
I am considering the request to the Council for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I would be grateful if by return of e mail and in accordance with section 8(1)(b) of the Act you can provide corroboration of your name and address in order for me to consider your request further.
If, for whatever reason, you are unhappy with our response, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to Head of Legal Services, Elmbridge Borough Council, Civic Centre, High Street, Esher, Surrey KT10 9SD.
Should you then remain dissatisfied at the outcome of that process, you are entitled to appeal against the decision by contacting:
The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45
Website: www.ico.gov.uk
There is no charge for making an appeal.
John Strachan
Parking Services Manager
This email, and any attachments, is strictly confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for use by the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender and delete it from your system. The opinions expressed in this email are not necessarily those of Elmbridge Borough Council.
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Dear John Strachan,
Thank you for your very prompt response.
I am declining to give my home address because I want to keep that from the public domain and want to see your responses here on whatdotheyknow.com, purely so members of the public can find it easily - Should they want to.
If you would like to give evidence that you have my email address or any of my details as a part of a obvious pseudonym request (under Section 50 FOIA) or a vexatious request then I will provide you, via email, my home address but I'd like all responses for this request to go through whatdotheyknow.com.
As you are aware, under the FOIA 2000 an email address is perfectly acceptable as a contact address. To this end I have asked for an internal review at this stage to determine why you consider my email address or details suspect under section 8(1)(b) and cannot accept my email address, as is, in accordance with the general concept of the Act.
The review should also consider what relevance a 'correct' (by what definition?) email address matters in this specific request.
If I don't receive a response of your intention to continue with my request I will have no option but to seek the assistance of the Commissioners Office should your review not be substantiated.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Gary Sawyer
Dear Mr Sawyer
Thank you for your e mail. I apprecaite you position on this, on a confirmation that "Gary Sawyer" is not a pseudonym I will consider your request further.
John Strachan
Dear Mr Sawyer
Thank you for your further e mail. Just to clarify, can you confirm to me that "Gary Sawyer" is your real name and not a pseudonym?
Regards
John Strachan
Parking Services Manager
Dear John,
For the sake of expediency, I confirm that I am Gary Sawyer, it is my real name, always has been and I have no intention of changing it in the near or far future.
Please would you include your last response within the internal review I have requested. I'm not particularly happy that I have to confirm whether or not I am using a pseudonym when it isn't relevant to this request, the FOIA or the concept that publicly accountable bodies are encouraged to make their information public. I am a member of the public, that should be enough.
Many thanks.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Sawyer
Dear Mr Sawyer
In response to your request:
1. Why did you choose Verrus over other UK pay by phone providers?
What assessment process did you use?
assessment of cost to the Council and the Customer.
2. Does Verrus store customers data within the Data Protection Act?
yes.
3. Are Elmbridge Council going to extend pay by phone parking to
motorcycles?
motorcycles park free. no plans to change this.
4. What is the cost of implementation to Elmbridge Council?
Information exempt - Section 43 of the Act sets out an exemption from the right to know if release of the information is likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person. (A person may be an individual, a company, the public authority itself or any other legal entity.)
If, for whatever reason, you are unhappy with our response, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to Head of Legal Services, Elmbridge Borough Council, Civic Centre, High Street, Esher, Surrey KT10 9SD.
Should you then remain dissatisfied at the outcome of that process, you are entitled to appeal against the decision by contacting: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45
Website: www.ico.gov.uk
There is no charge in making an appeal.
Regards
John Strachan
Parking Services Manager
This email, and any attachments, is strictly confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for use by the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender and delete it from your system. The opinions expressed in this email are not necessarily those of Elmbridge Borough Council.
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Dear John,
Many thanks for your prompt response.
Could I just draw out one issue. You claim that the cost of implementation to Elmbridge cannot be divulged under section 43 of the FOIA. Can you explain the public interest test you have carried out, the people judging this and the person making the ultimate decision?
Can you please explain what subsection of section 43 you are applying this case?
In line with the FOIA, it's simply not acceptable for a public body just to quote a whole section of the Act and expect that to be taken as reason. Your reply should be reasoned with evidence, where possible.
I'm simply asking the cost of the scheme to Elmbridge Council and it's ratepayers. This would include all signage, wayleave costs, traffic management orders and all other legal costs in going from the current Elmbridge solution to the one under Verrus, how does section 43 apply in all those cases?
Many thanks.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Sawyer
Dear Mr Sawyer
Just to confirm the exemption is 43(2), I am sorry if this was not clear from my earlier e mail.
I conclude that in each cost area, disclosure would prejudice the commercial interest of the service provider.
In further explanation, in providing this type of service some or all costs can be met by either the customer or the provider. To disclose details of who paid for what is information that is commercially sensitive, as it discloses the business model of the provider. On balance I feel that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information (section 2(2)(b).
If, for whatever reason, you are unhappy with our response, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to Head of Legal Services, Elmbridge Borough Council, Civic Centre, High Street, Esher, Surrey KT10 9SD.
Should you then remain dissatisfied at the outcome of that process, you are entitled to appeal against the decision by contacting: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45 Website: www.ico.gov.uk There is no charge in making an appeal.
Regards John Strachan Parking Services Manager
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Elmbridge Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Verrus Pay By Phone Parking'.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ve...
This is because I wish to take this forward to the ICO as I feel, and have confirmed by precedent, that the response given does not satisfy the requirements of the Act. The ICO requires that I ask Elmbridge to make in internal investigation before I take the result to them.
Yours faithfully,
Mr Sawyer
This is an automatic reply. Thank you for your enquiry to the Elmbridge Borough Council, which has been passed to the most suitable officer for action.
To meet our customer care standards we will try to reply to you as soon as possible and provide a full response within 10 working days.
If you have asked for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, you should receive a reply from us within 20 working days. Please look at our website for more details and exceptions to these response times: http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/Council/writ....
Please note we are not able to reply to unsolicited emails.
Elmbridge Borough Council
High Street, Civic Centre, Esher
Surrey, KT10 9SD
http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk
Direct Line: 01372 474474
This email, and any attachments, is strictly confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for use by the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender and delete it from your system. The opinions expressed in this email are not necessarily those of Elmbridge Borough Council.
This email has been scanned by Email Security Systems.
Dear Mr Sawyer,
Thank you for your email of 30 November 2009.
You have asked for an internal review of Elmbridge Borough Council's
handling of your FOI Request 'Verrus Pay By Phone Parking'.
I am the Council's Head of Legal Services and I have been passed your
request for consideration. Accordingly, please accept this email as the
Council's formal response to your request. I shall now set out the
findings of my internal review.
I have read the file correspondence and the various email exchanges.
You asked 4 separate questions about the Verrus system on 23 August
2009. John Strachan replied to three of those questions on 1 September
but declined to answer the 4th question on grounds that the information
was likely to prejudice the commercial interests of another person,
presumably the contractor in question. You followed up with
clarification that all you were seeking were the costs of the scheme to
the Council and its ratepayers. You cited as examples all signage,
wayleave costs, traffic management orders and all other legal costs.
I have therefore considered whether the Council can provide an answer
to the question 'What is the cost of implementation to Elmbridge
Council?'
I have spoken with the Head of Service and Mr Strachan. I understand
that there was a fear on their part that information on cost would be
advantageous to a competitor. However, it seems to me that we can
provide an answer to your question without breaching commercial
confidentiality.
This is a trial scheme which will run for 12 months. The main costs are
absorbed by the contractor. The only direct cost to the Council, so far
as I can reasonably ascertain, is the cost of signing for this period.
This amounts to £1,065.80. There are no wayleave, traffic management or
legal costs for this temporary period. There has been a small amount of
officer time engaged in setting up the trial, but I am advised that this
has been nominal and undertaken as part of normal duties with no
additional costs to the Council.
I do hope this answers your outstanding question. If you remain
dissatisfied at the outcome of this process, you are entitled to appeal
against this decision by contacting the Information Commissioner's
Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Telephone 08456 306060 or 01625 545745.
Website: www.ico.gov.uk
Yours sincerely,
Alan Harrison
Head of Legal Services
Elmbridge Borough Council
Civic Centre, High Street,
Esher, Surrey KT10 9SD
Tel: 01372 474192
Email: [email address]
This email, and any attachments, is strictly confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for use by the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender and delete it from your system. The opinions expressed in this email are not necessarily those of Elmbridge Borough Council.
This email has been scanned by Email Security Systems.
Dear Alan Harrison,
Thanks very much for your response, I think that covers the question. Thanks for your time.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Sawyer
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