Madam,

In light of a number of recent articles published in the Cambrian News I felt it necessary to provide your readers with additional information about the council’s Freedom of Information processes. Whilst the local authority wishes to be as helpful, open and transparent as possible to the many press enquiries we receive from reporters, there are a very small proportion of enquiries where the authority believes that the specific nature of the enquiry is best dealt with under Freedom of Information legislation. This is particularly the case with issues that involve procurement and third party contracts, as there may well be a legal requirement for us to consult with the contractor, which requires a timescale that a normal press enquiry does not afford us. There may also be other legal exemptions which could apply, and a failure to take them into account may present a risk to the authority, should we not give them adequate consideration. Our intention of course is to provide the newspaper with the information requested once this process has been applied and we are satisfied that we can release it.

Please be aware that processing a freedom of information request is also time-consuming for the authority and we wish to keep them to a minimum. I can reassure your readers that there is no policy in place in the authority to refer all cost enquiries to FOI, but they are often the ones where the balance between commercial interests and the public interest has to be carefully considered. Under FOI legislation the authority has the right to process a request for information in accordance with its FOI procedures regardless of whether or not the applicant refers specifically to FOI in their request; however, the authority makes every effort to co-operate with local news agencies by processing requests for information via our press enquiries channels.

As referred to in the Cambrian News’ recent article regarding the authority’s FOI statistics from the period 2016/17 it is evident that the number of requests received for the year is in great contrast to those which have progressed to internal review, which is indicative of the information in the majority of requests received having been disclosed.

I hope that the above reassures your readership that the authority will always lean in favour of disclosure of information providing it is lawful and appropriate to do so.

Yours etc,

Alun Williams,

Head of Policy Support,

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