11 September 2023
Your request
Please supply me the following information under FOI. In all cases this should be data for the full year 2019,2020,2021 and 2022, and the six months to 30 June 2023:
1. The number of logged FOI requests received by the authority;
2. The number of requests answered to the statutory deadline;
3. The number of requests answered more than one month late;
4. The number of requests not answered at all;
5. Details of the longest running request;
6. The number of internal reviews received; and
7. Copies of all internal review responses.
Our response
- During this period we received a total of 6508 FOIs
- FOI performance is reported to corporate committee twice yearly. The link below to the council’s website provides information already in the public domain may be helpful.
https://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=115
3. I can confirm that we have reviewed your request but consider that to comply with the request would exceed the cost/time limit specified by s12 FOIA.
Section 12 (cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit)
12. — (1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.
In this instance, we have decided that the process of determining whether the information is held will exceed the Appropriate Limit as provided by The Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.
The Appropriate Limit applies to costs/time the Council reasonably expects to use in carrying out the following activities to comply with your request:
- Determine whether the information is held
- Locating the information or documents containing the information
- Retrieving such information or documents
- Extracting the information from the document
The Appropriate Limit is currently set at £450 which is the equivalent to 18 hours of work at £25 per hour.
The statutory timescale is 20 working days. To ascertain how many cases were answered more than 1 month late would require a review of all 6508 cases received x 15 minutes per case. This would exceed the 18hr time limit and is therefore a cost refusal.
The process of retrieving and collecting the data is therefore likely to exceed the Appropriate Limit.
In accordance with Section 17 FOIA this letter represents a Refusal Notice for this part of the request.
Should you wish to redefine or shorten your request then please resubmit another request to us and we will consider if we can respond. For instance you may greatly reduce the time frame to a few months or weeks .Please note this advice is offered as S16 of the Freedom of Information Act (duty to provide advice and assistance) and does not guarantee that the information will be provided.
4. As Q3
5. As Q3
6. 342 internal reviews were received.
7. I can confirm that we have reviewed your request and we consider disclosure would breach the Data Protection Act 2018 and therefore engage Section 40(2): Personal Data to this request.
The definition of personal data is set out in provision 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as follows:-
(2)“Personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual
(3)“Identifiable living individual” means a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to—
(a)an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or
(b)one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual.
We note this request asks for information which would allow an individual(s) to be identified.
I have considered whether it would be fair to disclose the information including whether disclosure would cause any unnecessary or unjustified damage or distress to the individual concerned; the individual’s reasonable expectations of what would happen to their information; and balancing the rights and freedoms of the data subject with legitimate interests.
In this case, I can confirm that it would not be fair to the individuals to disclose information about their personal data as it could cause distress to the individuals.
I do not consider that the individuals would expect the Council to disclose any information which may allow them to be identified. Although I acknowledge the legitimate interest in disclosing general information relating to this request; I do not consider the legitimate interest overrides the rights and freedoms of the individual on this occasion.
In accordance with Section 17 FOIA this letter represents a Refusal Notice for this request.