FOI request (FOIR-526611713)

Online payment systems

Requested Sun 25 June 2023
Responded Thu 20 July 2023

I am conducting research on the technology used by councils to take payments from users of their online services.

Please could you advise me of:

1. What system do you use to take online payments from service users, and who supplies it?

2. When did you start using this system?

3. When does the contract end for this system?

4. What is the annual cost of the system?

5. Where is the system hosted? Please specify if it is hosted by the council in its own data centre, hosted by the council in its own cloud environment (such as AWS or Azure), hosted by the supplier as a discrete instance, or hosted by the supplier as a true software as a service?

6. How does the system integrate with the other elements of your online service delivery platform?

If you use more than one solution for online payments, please could you answer the above questions for each of them?

Response

1. Secure Bureau services - Company name refused - please see below.

2. 2011

3. 5 years from 11th July 2022

4. Refused - please see below.

5. At a data centre

6. File downloaded on a daily basis and file transfer protocol uploaded to our ERP system.

NOTICE OF REFUSAL

Parts of the information you have requested are commercially sensitive and fall under Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act - Commercially Sensitive Information.

Information prejudicing commercial interests - commercial interest relating to an organisations commercial activity and may include trading activity procurement and relationships with third parties.

The exemption afforded by Section 43 is subject to what is known as the 'public interest test'.

When applying the test in a particular case a public authority is deciding whether the public interest is better served by non-disclosure than by disclosure.

Although the Freedom of Information Act does not define 'in the public interest', there is a presumption under Freedom of Information that openness is in the public interest.

In applying the public interest test a public authority will take into account the distinction that has been often made by courts between things that are in the public interest, and things that merely interest the public.

Where applicants have not identified public interest considerations succinctly or accurately, the public authority has a responsibility under the Act to make their own assessment of the public interest considerations in the particular case.

We have identified the following public interest factors that may be seen as encouraging the disclosure of information:

a) accountability of public spending

We consider these factors to be of limited relevance in relation to the information in question.

Public interest factors seen as encouraging non-disclosure are, generally, the exemptions themselves.

In consideration of this matter we came to the following conclusions:

a) ensuring that companies are able to compete for business fairly

b) damage to reputation and/or financial interests

In weighing the factors for and against disclosure we have concluded that the likely benefit to the applicant and the wider public of disclosure is outweighed by the likely prejudice caused by such disclosure and that therefore the public interest is better served by non-disclosure.

For the reasons given above we will not be communicating to you the information you have requested.