Entertainment spend and budget

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request the following information from your department for the past 2 years:

1. The amount claimed by each of the chairman, chief executive, the chief financial officer (or equivalent), the chief marketing manager, and PR director (or equivalent) for entertainment spending. This refers to any amounts spent on meals, drinks or forms of entertainment such as trips, excursions or vehicles to assist trips. Please provide me with a full break down of each spend, including the date, people involved, where the money was spent and the intended purpose of the meeting. Please provide me with original receipts submitted if possible.

2. Please specify if there is a limit to the amount of such claims the above staff are allowed to make.

3. Please provide me with any amounts your department specifically allocates for spending on the above within annual budgets.

Thank you for your e-mail dated 8th September 2011. I can confirm that Ordnance Survey does hold some of the information you have requested, and I respond to each of your questions in turn.  Please note that in some instances we consider an exemption applies and therefore not all of the information we hold has been provided with our response, this is detailed where applicable.

1. I provide the attached spreadsheet (Porter – FINAL RESPONSE SPREADSHEET – FOI11217) detailing spend on entertainment by Ordnance Survey during the two year period 1^st September 2009 to 1^st September 2011.  The data includes items for the Director General and CEO, Director of Finance and Director of Sales and Marketing Development. There is a nil return for the Chairman.  Ordnance Survey does not have a PR Director or equivalent, and subsequently no information is held in relation.

Please be advised that we have not provided the names of the third party persons involved with the meetings detailed on the attached spreadsheet, as we consider this information to be exempt under Section 40 of the FOIA - Personal Information.

We consider Section 40 (2) applies as the name of a third party constitutes personal information.  Furthermore we are satisfied that together with the condition set out in Section 40 (3) (a) (i) of the FOIA, disclosure of this information would breach one of the Data Protection principles and therefore provides an absolute exemption.

We will not be providing you with the original receipts to accompany the expenses detailed in the spreadsheet, as under Section 12 of the FOIA we consider the cost of compliance with this part of the request to exceed the appropriate limit.

2. Whilst Ordnance Survey does operate a tightly controlled approval process for every type of spend, and costs of entertaining are covered by this robust governance process, we do not hold any information in relation to limits for such claims.

3. Ordnance Survey annual budgets do not include any amounts set aside specifically for entertaining purposes, therefore this information is not held.

Your enquiry has been processed according to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

To the extent that the Public interest test applies (section 17 FOIA), we have determined that in the circumstances of question 1, the use of Section 40 (2) (b) together with Section 40 (3) (a) (i) of the FOIA constitutes an absolute exemption and no Public Interest consideration applies.

If you are unhappy with our response, you may raise an appeal to our Appeals Officer at:

FOI Appeals Officer
Customer Service Centre
Ordnance Survey
Adanac Drive
SOUTHAMPTON
SO16 0AS

Please include the reference number below. The Appeals Officer will ensure that the process has been followed correctly, questioning any decisions taken regarding the original response and recommending disclosure of additional information if appropriate.

Thank you for your enquiry.

Reference number: FOI11217/September 2011