Matthew B Zawadzki, University of Sheffield

Dear Dr. Briant,

I have been asked to conduct a review of your request for information,

sent to the University on Wednesday 26th September 2019. An internal

review provides an opportunity to examine all aspects of the request, and,

if appropriate, to provide an alternative response to the one originally

supplied. In your request you asked for:-

"all communication and documents relating to negotiation of a contract

with Cambridge Analytica/Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) in

2016-17, including proposals, agreements, budget, any communications with

the executive board or Public Affairs, PR and marketing teams at UoS. And

also the dates, attendees and minutes of any meetings with the above

mentioned companies please."

A response was sent to you on Tuesday 22 October 2019 stating that:-

"The University has no record of any communications with Cambridge

Analytica."

I have sought to establish who was contacted within the University and

what searches were carried out. These are set out below.

When your request was received, it was sent, in the first instance, to the

Marketing and Communications department, in particular to the Head of

Media and External Communications and the Media Relations Manager. They

provided a nil response to the request relating to any information held by

themselves. The request was then sent to the Head of Governance, who also

confirmed a nil response relating to University Executive Board records

for 2016-2017. The request was then sent to the Director of HR and

Communications who suggested that the request also be forwarded to the

Director of Planning and Insight and all of the Heads of Corporate

Communications. One colleague within Corporate Communications then

highlighted that a proposal document was sent by Cambridge Analytica to

himself relating to their services and the potential to run a digital

advertising campaign following a telephone discussion. However at that

time the discussions or proposal was not taken any further and the

information was not retained. The colleague in Corporate Communications

searched their emails and records but found nothing relating to either of

the companies.

The request was then sent to the Director of Research Services who

confirmed that they also had no record of either company in either the

contracts database, CRM system or costing records. The final person to be

contacted was the Assistant Director of Finance (Financial Services). His

response was that he had searched both the Customers/Debtors and

Suppliers/Vendors accounts database and that there were no records of

either Cambridge Analytica or Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL)

being set up, and therefore no financial transactions were ever recorded.

It is my view that the request was sent to the appropriate Professional

Services Heads of Department and relevant members of staff. They would

have had the necessary knowledge and understanding of their departmental

information systems to be in a position to determine whether any relevant

information may have been held. In addition they searched relevant

information systems to establish whether any information was held and

communicated the results of those searches back to the person

co-ordinating the request. The one reference to contact with Cambridge

Analytica / SCL highlighted that no communication or documents were held

at the time of your request relating to your request.

I can only conclude therefore that the response sent to you on the 22

October 2019 was the correct one.

If you are not happy with this response you are entitled to contact the

Information Commissioner for a review of whether the University has met

the requirements of the Act.

Their address is:-

The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane,

Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Zawadzki

--

Matthew Zawadzki

University Records Manager and Archivist

University Secretary's Office.

[1]https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/uso

The University of Sheffield,

Arts Tower,

12 Bolsover Street,

Sheffield,

S3 7NA

References

Visible links

1. https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/uso