Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: Complaint regarding FOI request

Dear Mr Brooks,

I refer to your email of the 17th April. 

As I indicated in my previous e mail, the obligation of the Council, in response to a request
under the Freedom of Information Act/Environmental Information Regulations, is to provide information
that it "holds". It is not required to obtain new information in order to respond to a request.

The position at the time of receipt of your request was that the Council held no record of a meeting
of the AQMA Steering Group having taken place on the 30th November 2007, and held no minutes of such
meeting. You were informed of this in response to your request, and, on review, the position remained
the same. The Council did not hold any information to the effect that a meeting did not take place – it
was unable therefore to confirm or deny categorically whether the meeting took place.

That remains the position so far as the records of the Council itself are concerned. Whilst one 
officer had the meeting in his office diary, that is not conclusive evidence that the meeting took
place or that he attended, and indeed he cannot recall the meeting. The Town Hall "kitchen" diary
does not show any meeting that day.

However, in order to assist with your inquiry, the Council has gone beyond the statutory requirement
and has sought information from possible attendees from other authorities. Contact with the County
Council has now identified one officer who has been able to confirm that he attended the meeting on
the 30th November 2007, but that he did not receive any minutes of the meeting, and his recollection
is that the meeting was an informal discussion rather than a meeting where actions were agreed.

Contact has also been made with the Environment Agency, but the officer concerned has indicated that
he will be unable to check his records until next week.

In response to your email, therefore, and based on information which has now been received from the
County Council and which was not held by the Council at the time of your request, it would appear 
that the meeting did indeed take place on the 30th November 2007. The position remains the same,
however, with regard to your request for minutes of the meeting; the Council holds no such minutes. 

Yours sincerely,


Sarah Taylor
Head of Legal and Human Resources/Monitoring Officer
Lancaster City Council

Tel:  01524 582025
Fax: 01524 582030 

www.lancaster.gov.uk