Number of Rejected Public Questions for Council Meetings.
Case reference FOI2024/02066
Received 9 December 2024
Published 20 December 2024
Request
FOI question 1.
(a). How many public questions were submitted in 2021?
(b) How many of these were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(c). How many of these were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
(d). For the accepted and answered questions, how many supplementary questions were submitted?
(e). How many of these SQ’s were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(f). How many of these SQ’s were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
FOI question 2.
(a). How many public questions were submitted in 2022?
(b) How many of these were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(c). How many of these were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
(d). For the accepted and answered questions, how many supplementary questions were submitted?
(e). How many of these SQ’s were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(f). How many of these SQ’s were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
FOI question 3.
(a). How many public questions were submitted in 2023?
(b) How many of these were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(c). How many of these were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
(d). For the accepted and answered questions, how many supplementary questions were submitted?
(e). How many of these SQ’s were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(f). How many of these SQ’s were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
FOI question 4.
(a). How many public questions were submitted in 2024 to date?
(b) How many of these were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(c). How many of these were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
(d). For the accepted and answered questions, how many supplementary questions were submitted?
(e). How many of these SQ’s were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(f). How many of these SQ’s were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
Response
FOI question 1.
(a). How many public questions were submitted in 2021?
(b) How many of these were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(c). How many of these were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
(d). For the accepted and answered questions, how many supplementary questions were submitted?
(e). How many of these SQ’s were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(f). How many of these SQ’s were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
FOI question 2.
(a). How many public questions were submitted in 2022?
(b) How many of these were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(c). How many of these were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
(d). For the accepted and answered questions, how many supplementary questions were submitted?
(e). How many of these SQ’s were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(f). How many of these SQ’s were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
FOI question 3.
(a). How many public questions were submitted in 2023?
(b) How many of these were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(c). How many of these were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
(d). For the accepted and answered questions, how many supplementary questions were submitted?
(e). How many of these SQ’s were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(f). How many of these SQ’s were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
FOI question 4.
(a). How many public questions were submitted in 2024 to date?
(b) How many of these were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(c). How many of these were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
(d). For the accepted and answered questions, how many supplementary questions were submitted?
(e). How many of these SQ’s were accepted by Councillor/Democratic Services and answered?
(f). How many of these SQ’s were rejected by Councillor/Democratic Services?
A: The information requested in questions a, b, d and e in each of the years requested is publically available on Herefordshire Council’s website and can be viewed via the following link:
Get involved – Herefordshire Council
As such we consider this information to be exempt under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 because it is reasonably accessible to you via other means. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
The remaining information requested for questions c and f is not held in a form that would enable it to be located, retrieved and extracted within the Appropriate Time Limit which equates to 18 hours as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004.
To ascertain the data requested officers would need to manually review minutes/video recordings on You Tube, and review correspondence on two sets of dates per meeting;
o one date range to review written questions (from publication of agendas and papers to the question deadline);
o the second date range from where we publish the written responses to the original question up to the point at which the supplementary question deadline is reached (ninety mins before the committee is due to start).
An initial search has shown that there were 400 meetings between 2021 to 2024 that would need to be checked, and it is estimated that it would take 45 minutes to check each meeting.
This would at a conservative estimate take at least 300 hours to complete. Where the Limit is exceeded Public Authorities are not obliged to supply the information requested by virtue of S12 of the Act. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
If you wish to refine your request to a specific meeting, or month (for example, November 2024) then please do let me know and I can submit this to the service area to see if it could be answered within the limit.
We welcome your comments on your experience of making a FOI request to us, and would appreciate your feedback to help us improve our service further. Please complete and return the attached feedback form to us at this email address.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.