FOI 804-2023 / Aug 2023 / ICT expenditure
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 804-2023
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 29th August 2023 as follows:
ICT expenditure 2022/23
Please could you provide me with the attached information about your organisation's ICT expenditure.
Please include expenditure for the period April to March (or closest period based on your financial year). Please enter in £s, not £000s or £ms.
Please include revenue and capital expenditure, if possible.
Application development - external suppliers developing software customised to your requirements
Application Integration - External supplier integrating separate applications you use to enable exchange of functionality/information
Application Hosting - Hosting applications on an external suppliers servers
Other Hosting - web or file hosting on an external suppliers servers
IT Consulting - external supplier providing advice about how to align IT to business requirements. Please exclude maintenance, support or advice through a managed service
Permanent IT staff - Salary costs of internal, permanent IT staff
Temporary IT staff - Salary costs of internal, temporary IT staff
Please do not include spend through a managed service. If any or all of the above are provided through a managed service, please enter '0', and state 'Managed service' in Comments column.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. In order to determine expenditure for the requested IT services, all digital external suppliers would have to be extensively researched on multiple systems including finance and contracts and procurement, as well as searches of emails and correspondence sent and received. This is because the services and work described in the request is usually project based, which can include contributions from multiple internal and external services. The business area has advised that there are 88 suppliers that fall within the remit of this request, and each one would have to be researched manually. They have estimated that it would take approximately 25 minutes per supplier to try to extract the relevant information. Therefore, the work involved would exceed the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e., the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’, as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. For Police forces in the UK, the ‘appropriate limit’ is up to 18 hours of work on one request. A calculation of the work involved is set out below.
88 suppliers @ 25 minutes (minimum) to review each supplier = 36.6 hours (minimum)
In accordance with section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance; however, due to the work involved, I am unable to suggest a way to reduce your request into one which could be managed within the fees limit.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB