I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information. Please could you inform me:
For the period from 1 July 2025 to the latest date for which records are held at the time of your search (please state the end date used), please provide:
1. The total recorded spend incurred by the Council in removing unauthorised flags from public land or the highway, broken down (if held) by: staff time/recharge rates, contractor costs, vehicles/materials, disposal, overtime.
2. The number of incidents/jobs where unauthorised flags were removed, with date and ward or postcode sector for each (no exact addresses required).
3. The job/incident category codes and cost centre/recharge codes used for these removals (e.g. fly-posting/illegal signage/unauthorised banner).
4. The current schedule of rates (or equivalent) used by the Council/its contractor for removal of illegal signage/flags.
5. Any policy/guidance/SOP in force during the period for identifying and removing unauthorised flags, including the legal basis (e.g. Highways Act 1980 s132 / Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regs 2007).
If you do not hold a discrete “flag” category, please extract cases recorded under flyposting/illegal signage/unauthorised banners where the free-text notes contain “flag”, “Union Jack”, “St George’s Cross”, “England flag” (or combinations thereof) for the period.
If the request would exceed the appropriate cost limit, please:
* Provide items (1)–(2) as aggregated totals for the period;
* Provide (3)–(5) in full; and
* Advise what shorter date range or narrower category would be disclosable within the limit.
Under s11 FOIA / Reg 6 EIR, please supply the data in CSV or Excel (and PDFs for any policies/rates).