West Yorkshire, BD11 2DY
Tel: 01274 682311 Fax: 01274 651315
OFFICIAL
Mr Mark Hamilton
32 Gascoigne Avenue
Barwick in Elmet
Leeds LS15 4LW
/ Our Ref: IM20140605-01
Your Ref:
03 July 2014 /
Dear Mr Hamilton
FOIA Request for Information - Notice of Refusal
We refer to your recent requests for information:
“I would like to have sight of ALL the E-mails and correspondence sent to and from the following persons Cllr. Wilkinson, Cllr. Ron Grahame, ACO Walton and ACO Barnes during the period 1st Jan 2014 to the present date. Please state whether or not this should be a new request as I am now focusing on the actions/inactions regarding falsification of documents and the conduct of the senior officers involved in the investigation of the same.”
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS), when refusing a request to provide such information to provide you the applicant with a notice which states that fact.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the decision has been taken to refuse your request as it has been deemed to be a ‘Vexatious Request’. Section 14 (1) of the Act does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the request is vexatious or repetitious.
It is the decision of WYFRS that the series of linked requests, correspondence and complaints made to date has imposed a significant burden upon the service. The main effect of these continuing linked requests would be the disproportionate inconvenience or expense caused. In reaching this decision the requests have been considered against a number of factors, as defined by the Information Commissioner’s Office, and have been determined as:
•Personal grudges - For whatever reason, the requester is targeting their correspondence towards a particular employee or office holder against whom they have some personal enmity.
•Unreasonable persistence - The requester is attempting to reopen an issue which has already been comprehensively addressed by the public authority, or otherwise subjected to some form of independent scrutiny.
•Unfounded accusations - The request makes completely unsubstantiated accusations against the public authority or specific employees.
•Frequent or overlapping requests - The requester submits frequent correspondence about the same issue or sends in new requests before the public authority has had an opportunity to address their earlier enquiries.
•Deliberate intention to cause annoyance - The requester has explicitly stated that it is their intention to cause disruption to the public authority, or is a member of a campaign group whose stated aim is to disrupt the authority.
•No obvious intent to obtain information - The requester is abusing their rights of access to information by using the legislation as a means to vent their anger at a particular decision, or to harass and annoy the authority, for example, by requesting information which the authority knows them to possess already.
•Futile requests - The issue at hand individually affects the requester and has already been conclusively resolved by the authority or subjected to some form of independent investigation.
All of the above points have been evidenced by WYFRS and taking into account the context and history of this case it has determined that this latest request to be vexatious. In reaching this decision WYFRS has taken the following facts and matters into account. You have submitteda series of communications and requests for information (including both Subject Access Requests and Freedom of Information Requests) between February 2012 to date, and all linked to the same subject of the alleged misuse of WYFRS resources. You have explored and exhausted various avenues to address this issue including submissions under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Data Protection Act (DPA) and the WYFRS Complaints Procedure to Level 3. Further to this you have also made an unsuccessful complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman. Despite the comprehensive responses, investigations and conclusions undertaken and provided, you persist in attempting to use your access to information rights to continue, what would appear to be, a personal campaign against both the authority and one individually named senior officer. You have made repeated threats towards WYFRS of raising matters with the media in a bid to influence any outcome. Your persistence to be engaged with a very public campaign through local pressure groups has sought to cause maximum disruption and annoyance to the authority. Your continued communication with Fire Authority Members is an attempt to assert undue pressure on individuals to further your issue which has already been thoroughly investigated and concluded.
This shows evidence of patterns of obsession or of being manifestly unreasonable, the effect of which is to harass WYFRS. WYFRS consider that any attempt to answer or assist in relation to this latest request will lead on to further requests and dissatisfaction with the responses provided.
I confirm that any further requests made under the Act for information relating in any way to the alleged misuse of WYFRS resources, and any subsequent information relating to the responses received from WYFRS and any complaints made by yourself related to this matter and subsequent investigations, will be categorised as vexatious and will not be administered in any capacity.
Any requests you submit in the future will be considered on a case-by-case basis and if they comply with Section 8(1)(c) FOIA, e.g. describe the information requested, and are not of a nature that could be fairly characterised as obsessive or manifestly unreasonable, will not be treated as vexatious.
You should note that following this correspondence, we are not obliged to, nor do we intend to, take any further steps in relation to this matter or any further requests that you may submit that are deemed to fall into the remit of vexatious.
If you are dissatisfied in any way with the handling of your requests, you have the right to request a review. You should do this as soon as possible or in any case within two months of the date of issue of this letter. In the event that you require a review to be undertaken, you can do so by writing to the Information Management Officer, Corporate Services at:
West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service
Oakroyd Hall
Birkenshaw
West Yorkshire
BD11 2DY
Telephone: 01274 473787
Email:
If following an internal review, carried out by an independent decision maker, you were to remain dissatisfied in any way with the handling of the request you may make a complaint, under Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act, to the Information Commissioner’s Office and ask that they investigate whether the WYFRS has complied with the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. You can write to:
Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire,
SK9 5AF.
In most circumstances the Information Commissioner will not investigate a complaint unless an internal review procedure has been carried out, however the Commissioner has the option to investigate the matter at his discretion.
Yours sincerely
Allan Darby
Information Management Officer
01274 473787
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