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Proceeding contribution from Lord Jones (Labour) in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 12 May 2009. It occurred during Debates on delegated legislation on Freedom of Information (Time for Compliance with Request) Regulations 2009.


Freedom of Information (Time for Compliance with Request) Regulations 2009

I thank my noble friend for his patient introduction. Does he not agree that 60 working days is a lengthy period? Can he give us the likely reasons for requiring such a long time? The first line of the third paragraph of the Explanatory Note contains the word "certain". What kind of "certain" authorities are we considering here, because the word has been inserted with deliberation. Likewise, we have reference to the word "promptly"; that seems to sit uneasily with 60 working days, which can be some months if one includes vacation days. Has my noble friend any statistics on this? Do we know how many requests are expected? Are any statistics available for previous years to inform the estimate in that respect? The Explanatory Note refers to a "fees notice" given to the applicant. Do the fees vary and do they always apply? May we have an instance of the kind of fee that is charged? Are they set on a nationwide basis or are they decided by a particular authority? Does my noble friend have any Welsh details to report in this respect? Also, would he define the phrase "grant-maintained integrated school" as it is written here and say what is meant by a "voluntary school"?


Secondary information

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
710 c349GC 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
Subjects
Freedom of information Northern Ireland Schools Time limits Pupil referral units
Legislation
Freedom of Information (Time for Compliance with Request) Regulations 2009
Link
View this Proceeding contribution on www.publications.parliament.uk