Birmingham Hippodrome ASTONish scheme
Dear Arts Council England,
Birmingham City Council say that you offered matched funding for the ASTONish scheme. They say they are paying £125,000 for it and so we assume you are paying the same amount. Please confirm how much you are paying.
Please disclose the grant application and all communications leading up to you agreeing this large grant.
Please make sure you include all communications passing between Birmingham Hippodrome/Fiona Allan and the Arts Council/Peter Knott/ACE Midlands office/ACE Midlands Board.
Yours faithfully,
West Midlands Arts News Collective
Dear West Midlands Arts News Collective,
Thank you for your request for information from Arts Council England.
Before we can begin to process your request for information, we must first
ask for some clarification regarding the identity of the requester.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has clear guidelines on who
can and cannot make a valid Freedom of Information request, outlined here:
[1]https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...
Within this, they specify that a request is valid if it is made by an
individual, or a legally registered company, as follows:
To be valid under the Act, the request must […] include the requester’s
real name. The Act treats all requesters alike, so you should not normally
seek to verify the requester’s identity. However, you may decide to check
their identity if it is clear they are using a pseudonym or if there are
legitimate grounds for refusing their request and you suspect they are
trying to avoid this happening, for example because their request is
vexatious or repeated. Remember that a request can be made in the name of
an organisation, or by one person on behalf of another, such as a
solicitor on behalf of a client;
We have been unable to verify that West Midlands Arts News Collective is a
registered company, and as such, under the ICO’s guidelines, which Arts
Council England aims to uphold, your current request for information is
not valid.
However, as we value transparency, we would very much like to consider
your request. As such, you are welcome to submit the request as either a
named individual, or as a registered company, or on behalf of another
through legal representation/as a client.
Once we receive this clarification we are happy to proceed with your
request. Should you wish to withdraw your request, please confirm in
writing. If we do not hear from you within 20 working days from today (25
October 2017), we shall discontinue this request.
Kind regards
Nick Carter
Officer, Information
Telephone: 0161 934 4341
Email [2][Arts Council England request email]
[3]web | [4]twitter | [5]facebook | [6]instagram | [7]linkedin
I think [8]#culturematters – do you?
Dear FOI,
You already hold personal details for us. We will send again.
Yours sincerely,
West Midlands Arts News Collective
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