Dear J Cassidy
 
Thank you for your request for information 
 
Your request for minutes has been discussed with other Authorities represented at the Joint Council meetings, and the conclusion reached is that disclosure would discourage member Authorities from free and frank discussion, and so undermine the viability of this strategic forum. Accordingly, it is the opinion of Kent County Council's Monitoring Officer that this information should be withheld under Section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act, as disclosure is likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs.
 
Section 36 requires consideration of where the public interest lies, and it is KCC's opinion that it would not be in the best interests of the public for this forum to be undermined by the reluctance of member Authorities' representatives to engage in free and frank discussion. Furthermore, it is felt that disclosure of data provided by individual Authorities may be detrimental to community relations, particularly in view of the vulnerable nature of UASC (unaccompanied minors) and other BME groups. 
 
In addition to the meeting minutes already provided for ADASS/ADCS Asylum Task Force under  your previous FOI request  (reference FOI/09/272 ) please find attached agendas, attendance list, terms of reference and 'No Recourse to Public Funds: Financial Implications for Local Authorities' which can also be found at the attached link to the ADASS website with further key documents
 
If you disagree with this stance, you can appeal direct the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is because there is no-one sufficiently senior within the Authority that could conduct an independent internal review of this decision which was made at the highest level. Details of what you need to do, should you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the Information Commissioner’s website .  
http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom_of_information.aspx
 
Best regards
 
Caroline Dodge
Corporate Access to Information Coordinator, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room 1.94, Sessions House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 221652 - Fax: 01622 694383


-----Original Message-----
From: Cassidy, J [mailto:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx]
Sent: 15 May 2009 15:29
To: Freedom of Information - CED
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Joint Council meetings minutes

     Dear Sir or Madam,

     Can you please email me an electronic copy of the following
     information:

     1) Copies of all the Meetings Minutes held, of the 'Joint Councils'  (JC) (see notes below) since it's inception. A 20 February 08 JC
     meeting was held in Oxford and the Kent County Council  representatives had been:

     Peter Gilroy Paul Carter

     2) Copies of all the Meetings Minutes held, of the ADASS/ADCS Asylum Task Force since it's inception, for which Kent Council
     Council is represented at.

     Notes:

     References to Joint Councils:

     a. Joint Councils report:

     Unaccompanied care leavers and asylum seekers report
     http://www.kent.gov.uk/publications/council-and-democracy/uasc-report-financial-summary.htm?_Page=2

     b. Joint Council members:

     Birmingham City Council

     Hounslow Council

     London Borough of Hillingdon

     London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

     Kent County Council

     Manchester City Council

     Oxfordshire County Council

     Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

     West Sussex County Council

     c. extract "1.1 Joint Council Meeting The joint council are doing  two things: • Raising concerns about the framework of legislation
     in regard to UASC. • Looking at practical impacts on Local Authorities, particularly in terms of financial risk"

     http://www.islington.gov.uk/DownloadableDocuments/HealthandSocialCare/Pdf/mins_adss_subgroup_jan08.pdf

     : Your correspondence

     Please ensure that any of your general correspondence, acknowledgements or holding letters etc are included or
     cut-and-pasted into the body of the email messages, using plain  text, rather than as attachments. As this will mean your
     correspondence is much easier to access, read and respond to.

     : Accessibility:

     When providing any information disclosures please provide it in the original unrestricted format such as:

     a. MS Word .doc or Rich Text Text .rtf format or equivalent
     (suitable for disclosure of email messages)

     b.Spreadsheets in MS Excel .xls format or equivalent

     c.Presentations in MS Powerpoint .ppt format or equivalent

     or converted to Portable Document Format (PDF), ONLY if none of the
     above formats are available

     if you only have a paper version (hard copy) available, please provide a Digital Photo Copier Scanned version in PDF format. If
     you do provide disclosures in PDF from a Digital Photo Copier Scan, please state that you have done so because no other format, such as
     a, b or c above, are available.

     If you need to redact text elements of any disclosure can you please ensure that the rest of text based information remains
     accessible to a Screen Reader.
     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader>

     Please ensure any electronic disclosures are absolutely free of any Document limitations or controls, such as making them Read-only,
     Encrypted or Password restricted, as this is likely to render them less usable on a general basis and more specifically, inaccessible
     to Assistive Technology.

     Please do not send any information in compilation archive formats, such as .zip.

     Providing correspondence and disclosed information via these means will help ensure that text based information is accessible for use
     with a Screen Reader or a Magnifier for none text based information and will prevent any further and separate representations under the
     Disability Discrimination Act. If you are unable to meet these reasonably practicable accessibility requests please state why and
     provide a copy of any internal information, such as a policy relied upon that would explain such a decision.

     Yours faithfully,

     Cassidy, J

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