Cost of food and food wastage at the Assembly

Information Standards Freedom of Information Response

Our Ref: FoI 53-20

16^th February 2021

Freedom of Information Act 2000

Thank you for your request of 4^th November 2020 for the following information:

“1. For each year from 2016 to 2020 so far, please disclose the following:

a. The total cost of food supplied.

b. The amount of unused food (food waste) disposed of. If possible, please provide a monthly breakdown of the weight of all food thrown away.

c. The amount/weight of all rubbish waste (including food waste and all other waste except recycling) disposed of, and a monthly breakdown of this.

2. For each year from 2016 to 2020 so far, please disclose the following:

a. The amount spent on the subsidy for the Stormont assembly canteen.

b. The amount spent on subsidising each of the other food and drink outlets (e.g. Members Bar Lounge, Blue Flax, Café Recess, etc.)”

I confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission (the Assembly Commission”) holds information relevant to your request.

Information relevant to point 1.b, and 1.c. of your request is set out in Appendix A.

Information relevant to point 2 of your query is attached within Appendix B.

The information that you have requested in point 1.a. of your query has not been disclosed as this information is exempt from disclosure under section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the FOIA”). This is because its disclosure under the FOIA would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the Assembly Commission and the contractor and the public interest in disclosing the information is outweighed by the public interest in maintaining the exemption. Please see the attached notice at Appendix C setting out details of the information held by the Assembly Commission and reasons for the non-disclosure. 

If you feel that the information we have provided does not meet your request fully, please contact this office as soon as possible.  You have the right to request a formal review by the Assembly Commission and if you wish to do so, please write to me at the above address.

If after such an internal review you are still unhappy with the response, you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF who will undertake an independent review.

The Assembly Commission may publish details of your FOI request and our official response within the organisational disclosure log. The request will be completely anonymised and you will not be identified in any way. This is to meet the requirements as laid out by in the agreed publication scheme with the Information Commissioners’ Office.

Yours sincerely,

INFORMATION STANDARDS & DATA PROTECTION OFFICER

Appendix A

1. For each year from 2016 to 2020 so far, please disclose the following:

b. The amount of unused food (food waste) disposed of. If possible, please provide a monthly breakdown of the weight of all food thrown away.

c. The amount/weight of all rubbish waste (including food waste and all other waste except recycling) disposed of, and a monthly breakdown of this.

The provision of waste contractor services for the Assembly Commission is managed through a pan-government framework contract, which encompasses Parliament Buildings and the wider Stormont Estate.

Within Parliament Buildings, it is not possible to separate the food waste generated by the catering operations and the food waste collected from the recycling bins located throughout the building. The following table includes the monthly figures in kilograms (kg) for both waste generated by catering operations and waste collected from recycling bins, from January 2016 to May 2020.

All unused food from Parliament Buildings and the Stormont Estate is transported directly to an anaerobic digestion plant where it is processed to produce fertiliser and biogas. In addition, all waste generated from Parliament Buildings and the Stormont Estate is recycled, with zero waste going to landfill.

Appendix B

2. For each year from 2016 to 2020 so far, please disclose the following:

a. The amount spent on the subsidy for the Stormont assembly canteen.

b. The amount spent on subsidising each of the other food and drink outlets (e.g. Members Bar Lounge, Blue Flax, Café Recess, etc.)

The Assembly Commission requires that catering services are provided during business hours and for events / functions. Where the cost of providing these services exceeds the monies taken in, the extra cost is incurred by the Assembly Commission. This operating cost is sometimes referred to as a subsidy.

Please find below the total of operating costs for food and drink outlets at Parliament Buildings for each year from 2016 to 2020 (to 31 October 2020). One of the measures taken in response to the Coronavirus pandemic was to allocate a number of catering staff to sanitising duties (for hand contact areas, etc.) throughout Parliament Buildings.

While staff were allocated to this task on an ad hoc basis between April and August 2020, a formal variation to the contract was agreed and introduced from September 2020 that recorded the hours dedicated each week to this task. The additional sanitising costs for April to August 2020 are therefore included in the catering cost for 2020.

It is not possible to provide a breakdown per individual catering outlet due to the nature of the contract.

Appendix C

1. For each year from 2016 to 2020 so far, please disclose the following:

a. The total cost of food supplied.

Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 states: -

“Information is exempt information if its disclosure under the Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it)”.

This exemption applies where disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the ability of an organisation to secure future business by allowing competitors access to their particular pricing and methodology, providing an opportunity to copy this, undercut their prices and provide contenders with competitive advantage.  

Disclosure of pricing is likely to weaken an organisation’s position in a competitive environment by revealing market sensitive information or information of potential usefulness to its competitors.  Disclosure of pricing is also likely to weaken the organisation’s position in this market place. Thus providing competitors an opportunity to undercut their prices and therefore provide potential competitive advantage in securing future business.

In disclosing the information requested the Assembly Commission would be disclosing the current provider’s particular pricing model. 

It is therefore likely that release of the requested figures would prejudice the commercial interests of the contractor and compromise future procurements.  This publication would compromise the fairness of that process by enabling other bidders to calculate the original pricing model of the current provider.   Specifically, this would be likely to undermine the procurement process, compromise any future bid by the current provider and therefore prejudice the commercial interests of the current contractor.  

It would also be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the Assembly Commission as it would be detrimental to the Assembly Commission’s ability to negotiate with bidders in order to achieve best value for money on behalf of the public.

The Public Interest Test 

S.43 (2) is a qualified exemption and therefore it is necessary to carry out a public interest test to identify whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption is greater than that in providing the information.  

In this case the public interest in disclosure is out-weighed by the public interest in maintaining the exemption.

There is a significant public interest in ensuring proper scrutiny of the Assembly Commission’s spend of public money and there is a significant public interest in ensuring that the Assembly Commission’s commercial activities are conducted in an open and transparent way.

There is also a strong and legitimate public interest in maintaining the ability of private companies to compete in a commercial market on a level playing field.  Any disclosure of the withheld information, which would be likely to prejudice that ability to compete, would undermine that public interest.

Further, there is a strong public interest in ensuring that the ability of the Assembly Commission to secure value for public money is not undermined and that the integrity of a future procurement process for catering services is protected.