By E-Mail:
Dear Dr Reddington,
Information Request:
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated 27th July 2012. Your request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act and is detailed below in italics with our response in bold.
(Please note the extract below has been taken directly from your original information request and is unedited).
I am an academic researcher, attempting to assess the provision of
augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices in
Education in the UK (devices used to aid communication, typically
for people with difficulty speaking). Could you please send me a
list of augmentative and alternative communication devices
purchased by or within your authority between 31st March 2006 and
1st April 2012? (So we are including both for children and adults,
and both educational and social reasons)
We would like the information broken down by both product name (So
for example Dynavox Xpress, iPod touch with TapToTalk, BigMack)
and
by year. Ideally you would include the price paid, but we can
deduce that from the
products if necessary.
Our Response
The Freedom of Information Team has been provided with the following information in response to your recent request on behalf of Northamptonshire County Council (NCC).
In August 2012 the local authority granted a contract to one of the special schools who will manage the AACService moving forward. The provision will be made up of colleagues from health and education. One of the requirements of this new service is that records will be kept of all equipment provided to aid communication for children. As this is a new service and we are transferring from a historic model where records of the detail requested are not easily available, the local authority are currently unable to provide the information requested however this situation will be rectified in the future. Therefore we have set out below our fees refusal supporting our current situation.
Unfortunately, I have estimated that the time it will take to undertake the necessary search, retrieval and preparation work that will enable us to respond to the request you have made will exceed the fee limit as set out in the Appropriate Limit and Fees Regulations. Therefore, the Council is not obliged to provide a response and I will not be processing your request further. For information purposes, the fee limit set down by the Regulations is £450.00 and in our case this equates to a maximum of 18 hours’ of search and retrieval time. This has been calculated taking into account the recording systems we currently have in place across the organisation which do not enable us to easily access this information as it is not located in a centralised system. Under the legislation it is not necessary to create new information in order to answer a request.
Section 12-Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
(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.
For information in relation to our schools, as they are data controllers in their own right; I have provided you with the url to our schools directory which will enable you to make contact with them directly should you wish to do so.
http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/en/councilservices/educationandlearning/schoolsdir/pages/schoolsdirectory.aspx?Distance=&Postcode=&Name=
The disclosure to you of the enclosed information does not give you a right to reproduce or publish such information without the express permission of the County Council or any other owners of the copyright therein.
If you are unhappy with the response, you can ask the Council to review it. To do this please write to the address below:
Jo Russell
Council Planning and Policy Manager
Business Intelligence and Performance Improvement
Northamptonshire County Council
Ground Floor
John Dryden House
8-10 The Lakes
Bedford Road
Northampton
NN4 7YD
If our internal review does not resolve the issue to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to apply to the information Commissioner for a decision at the following address:
Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Or, if you have any complaints in respect of your information request please complete the on-line comments form that can be found at www.northamptonshire.gov.uk, along with a full set of guidance.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information/Data Protection Team
Business Intelligence and Performance Improvement
E-Mail-