On 23 December 2011 13:54, Alex Skene <[email protected]> wrote: > On 23 December 2011 09:40, Stephen Booth <[email protected]> > wrote: >
> > Another reason I've seen used, which I think we will see more often in > the future, is where a request covers a service which is delivered via a > private sector company (which may be wholly owned by the public sector > body) so the response is that as the FOI only covers public sector bodies > no information from the company can be supplied and any information held by > the public body will be commercially confidential and there cannot be > released. > > Companies wholly-owned by public authorities are already separately > covered by FOI (with a few exemptions to this rule, eg the BBC). > Irrespective of this, any info held by private companies is covered > under FOI, as long as it is held "on behalf of" the public authority > > A specific example was a council (Birmingham) with IT support and procurement provided through a joint venture company receiving an FoI request for how much they spent on Microsoft Office software (also hpow many of what kind of licenses) and asking if any feasibility study had been done on using OpenOffice.org instead. The response was that as IT support was provided via the Joint Venture which was majority owned by a private partner there was no duty to supply the details requested and to supply overall costs paid to the joint venture for IT support may predjudice any future tendering for re-letting of the contract (the contract (it's a 15 year contract) wasn't actually due to be tendered for another 10 years). Stephen -- It's better to ask a silly question than to make a silly assumption. http://stephensorablog.blogspot.com/ | http://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenboothuk | Skype: stephenbooth_uk Apparently I'm a "Eierlegende Woll-Milch-Sau", I think it was meant as a compliment.
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