Thank you for your email.
If you have submitted a Freedom of Information request please accept this
email as acknowledgement that your request has been received. You should
expect a response from us within 20 working days.
Data Protection & FOI
Legal Services
UCL

Dear Rebecca,

 

I am writing in response to your request for information, please accept my
apologies for the fact that we were unable to provide you with this
response within 20 working days.

 

Please find attached information held by UCL relevant to your request. As
you can see we have provided the financial data relating to tuition fee
expenditure at UCL faculty level, excluding the totals for the faculties
of Social and Historical Sciences and Arts and Humanities in accordance
with your request as these totals were previously provided.

 

The financial data relating to tuition fee expenditure at departmental
level has been withheld under section 43(2) of the FOI Act. This is
because we have concluded that data at a departmental level of
disaggregation would when combined with the departmental data already
provided provide commercial advantage to a competitor.  There are a large
number of departments at UCL, some are very small and with a limited range
of programmes (e.g. only 1 undergraduate programme).  Data at this level
of detail would allow reasonable conclusions to be drawn about the cost
profile and therefore the contribution margin at an individual programme
level, or at least for small numbers of cognate programmes.  Such
information would allow other providers to set prices for competing
offerings in a way that would disadvantage UCL. As a consequence we
believe that placing this information into the public domain would be
likely to prejudice the commercial interests of UCL.

 

Section 43 is a qualified exemption and this requires UCL to consider the
public interest. Whilst we accept that there is a general public interest
in openness and transparency and as a result UCL published its annual
accounts; has placed information relating to tuition fee income and
expenditure into the public domain for a small sample of departments and
now also aggregated at faculty level across UCL. There is also a public
interest in ensuring that we are able to compete on a level playing field
with our competitors. Having considered the above we feel that the faculty
level information satisfies the public interest and that in this instance
the public interest in withholding the information at academic department
level outweighs that of disclosure. Consequently this information is
withheld under section 43 by virtue of section (2) because disclosure
under would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of UCL

 

You are free to use any information supplied for your own use, including
for non-commercial research purposes. The information may also be used for
the purposes of news reporting. However, any other type of re-use, for
example by publishing or issuing copies to the public, will require the
permission of the copyright owner.

 

If you are unhappy with our response to your request and wish to make a
complaint or request a review of our decision, please email
[1][email address]. Emails should include the words ‘Internal
Review’ in the subject and be marked For the Attention of the Vice Provost
Operations, alternatively you should write to:

 

Vice Provost Operations

University College London

1-19 Torrington Place

London WC1E 7HB

 

Please note, complaints and requests for internal review received more
than two months after the initial decision will not be handled.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you may
apply directly to the Information Commissioner at the address given
below.  You should do this within two months of our final decision.

 

If you have any queries or concerns, please contact me using the details
provided in this letter and including the request reference number.

 

Further information on the Freedom of Information Act is available from
the Information Commissioner’s Office:

 

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

SK9 5AF

 

Telephone       01625 545700

[2]www.ico.org.uk

 

 

Regards,

 

 

Alex Daybank

Data Protection & FOI

Legal Services

University College London

 

[3]cid:image003.jpg@01CF4F2E.F65C2E80

 

 

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