our ref FOI 1659 your ref

please write to Information Rights Officer J Cope Financial Ombudsman Service PO Box 73208 Sent by email only: request-292922- London [email protected] E14 1QQ

dx 141280 Isle of Dogs 3 30 October 2015 website www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk Dear J Cope your request for information

I am writing in response to your email of 17 September 2015. In your email you requested the following information:

“Dear Financial Ombudsman Service Limited,

Please could you provide a list of all periodicals, website and subscription services used by legal and jurisdiction with costs per year.”

Response

I have carefully considered your request and I am able to provide you with the following information.

Our legal and jurisdiction team have access to the following periodicals, websites and subscription services:

 Lexis Library/Lexis PSL, organisation-wide access  Westlaw, organisation-wide access  Practical Law, unlimited log-ins  TraceIQ  DueDil  Land Registry  Moneyfacts PDFs  Moneyfacts ILP PDFs  Moneyfacts UK Mortgage Trends  Moneyfacts UK Savings Trends  Moneyfacts UK Credit Card Trends  Insurance Law Monthly PDF  Consumer Law Today PDF

Please note that these services are solely for the use of the legal team and can be accessed by other members of staff.

Page 1 of 3 Unfortunately we will not be providing you with the cost of these services because we consider that to do so would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of our providers as it would reveal their pricing structures.

In such circumstances, the information is exempt from disclosure under section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act:

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

Section 43(2) is a qualified exemption, so we have also considered whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information you have requested.

The Financial Ombudsman recognises that there is a general public interest in transparency and public authorities procuring services which represent ‘value for money’. In light of this, we publish an annual corporate plan and budget (http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/plan-budget.htm) and make a significant amount of information available on our procurement webpage (http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/about/procurement.html). Notwithstanding this, we do not consider that the public interest lies in the publication of a private company’s commercially sensitive information.

In all the circumstances of the case, we are therefore satisfied the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

The legal team also have access to the following resources and the price of these is publicly available:

 The Law Society Gazette  Sweet & Maxwell – The White Book  Sweet & Maxwell – Human Rights Practice  Sweet & Maxwell – Encyclopaedia of Data Protection and Privacy  Sweet & Maxwell – Colinvaux and Merkin's Insurance Contract Law

Finally, the legal team also subscribe to legal news bulletins via their work email addresses, which are relevant to their role here at the ombudsman service. The following subscriptions are free, and there is one which we pay for:

 Lexology  Law Gazette  Current Awareness  Freshfields   Bird & Bird   Eversheds   Human Rights Consortium  Human Rights Watch  Panopticon   Inner Temple Library

Page 1 of 3  Information Commissioner’s Office e-newsletter  Central Law Training  PDP  Court of Protection Hub  Mental Capacity Law –  Education Law Blog – KB Chambers  CMS Cameron McKenna’s Law-Now  Third-sector   UK Human Rights Blog (One Crown Office Row)  CMS Reg Zone  New Law Journal  The Law Society  Henderson Chambers  King and Wood Malleson financial regulation  Public law project  Commerce & Industry Group £432 (including VAT)

I hope that my response addresses your request; however, if you do not consider that we have fully complied with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, there is further information overleaf.

Yours sincerely

Saadia Sajid Information Rights Officer email [email protected] if you are not satisfied with our response

If you are not satisfied with our response, please contact us within two months of the date of this letter – explaining why you are not happy – and asking us to carry out a review. You can contact our information rights officers by email at [email protected] or by writing to this address:

Information Rights Officer Financial Ombudsman Service PO Box 73208 London E14 1QQ

If you remain unhappy after we have carried out our review, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office within six months:

First Contact Team Information Commissioner's Office Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow SK9 5AF

Page 1 of 3 phone: 0303 123 1113 email: [email protected] website: www.ico.org.uk/complaints

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