11 January 2010

Mr T Nunn

Via email (request-18207-87390[email address])

Your ref:

Our ref: CS/09/098/NJK/act

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Dear Mr Nunn
 
I refer to your request for a review of Ms Pook's 16 October decision concerning your request of 18 September 2009. I apologise for my delay in this matter.
 
You asked, over the past five years, how many certified offences has each LGO brought to the attention of the High Court, how many involved a Council member or officer, what were the outcomes and which was the Council involved.
 
Ms Pook explained that we do not keep a separate record of this information. The only way we could assemble the information would be to examine every case file. However she went on to point out that the LGO is not permitted to disclose information obtained in the course of an investigation other than for purposes of the investigation of the complaint or for other limited purposes set out in the relevant legislation (the Local Government Act 1974).
 
She concluded that the release of the information to you, were we to assemble it, would not be permitted under this legislation.
 
You commented in your review request that you were not seeking information obtained during the course of an investigation. You were asking for the number of times each LGO had so much difficulty in obtaining information for the purposes of an investigation they had to certify an offence to the High Court and that, as this is a rare occurrence, you did not believe that obtaining this information would require examination of each complaint file.
 
Having examined your 18 September 2009 request it is not clear that this was the information you were requesting. I consider that Ms Pook provided you with the correct response based on her understanding of your request. 
 

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11 January 2010

On the basis of the clarification you have now provided, I can advise you that over the past five years there has been no occasion when it has been necessary for an LGO to obtain a direction from the High Court for a council or council officer to provide information requested by the LGO in connection with an investigation. The first step in the process to certify an offence to the High Court is the drafting of a witness summons. Based on the recollection of our legal adviser, this has taken place approximately three times in the last five years. In all these cases the service of the summons or threat of it has prompted the council to produce documents and witnesses. So it has not been necessary to proceed further. Whilst I am able to provide you with this numerical information, I am not able to provide you with any detail on these particular cases (eg the councils or witness names) as we would categorise this data as information obtained during the course of an investigation.

If you are not content with my decision on this matter you may raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner. His contact details are on the website www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely

Deputy Chief Executive and Secretary

The official title of the Local Government Ombudsman service is

the Commission for Local Administration in England

LGO 02 (03/09)