Secret Bournemouth and Poole College Wessex Youth Orchestra rehearsal schedules for 2017/2018

(Post made at 1620 UK BST time on 3 Sep 2018 in a personal capacity.  Please see here for important background and disclosure of interests).

Further to this post last year, below are the Wessex Youth Orchestra (WYO) rehearsal schedules for the past academic year.  They are still marked secret on the CWYM website ("for WYO members and families only", see http://www.cwym-music.com/wyo-membership-guidelines.html), and on the schedules themselves (with the exception of the Summer 2018 schedule - a sign of progress?): "Private and confidential".

This secrecy continues to be bizarre and in the past parents have mentioned to me, on learning of this practice (after their child had recently joined the WYO): "I understand that the rehearsal schedules are secret - what's that about??".

As in the past, I had to use the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) in order to obtain the schedules, and the Bournemouth and Poole College has again tried to prevent their publication by claiming that copyright prevents them from being published without the copyright holder's permission.

Secret WYO rehearsal schedules which both the WYO Director and the College repeatedly tried to stop publication of

(This post is made on a personal basis, as a member - and until recently Chairman -of SWYM because of my significant concerns about some aspects of the running of the otherwise excellent Wessex Youth Orchestra, and about recent aspects of the governance of SWYM. Please see https://musicmattersandculture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/welcome-disclosure-of-interests-terms.html for important background and disclosure of interests).

Almost six months after I first asked for the autumn schedule, and delays in obtaining it under Freedom of Information, followed by repeated attempts by the Bournemouth and Poole College (the College) to avoid the information being published (by false claims that it would infringe copyright to do so) I am now able to publish the Wessex Youth Orchestra (WYO)'s rehearsal schedule for Autumn 2016, and also for Spring 2017.

I pointed out several times to the College that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has made clear that copyright is no bar to publication of responses received under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and that copyright is not infringed by publishing the information providing the copyright is acknowledged. (See paragraph 18 of https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1150/intellectual_property_rights_and_disclosures_under_the_foia.pdf).   The College did not reply for several weeks and when I asked a third time for clarification came back with "we acknowledge the regulations" which evaded the question.

When an organisation repeatedly claims that a list (of rehearsal dates and times, and instructions to children/parents about confidentiality and how many rehearsals must be attended) is COPYRIGHT and publishing it would breach that copyright, then one is entering PrivateEye territory. Such a claim stretches credulity and smacks of a desperate attempt to avoid publication of the said schedules.