Request:

I am writing to request an internal review of North Tyneside Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'LG Act 1974 Part III Section 32(3) notices'.

I do not accept your argument over the difficulty and cost of supplying the information. The council would have obtained either internal or external legal advise over the serving of a said notice so they would know how many times this has occurred without searching all their complaint files.

In addition, if the LGO had found the council guilty of maladministration for misusing said notice then your monitoring officer would have been under a statutory and constitutional duty to bring this to the attention of the council so again there is no reason to search complaint files to supply the information sought.

Response:

In order to be able to answer your original request, it would be necessary to search through the Council's files relating to each LGO investigation.

Your assumptions in connection with how the Council would gather the information requested, are incorrect. Legal advice as to whether to exempt information under Section 32 (3) of the LGA 1974 is not routinely sought. Furthermore, there has not been an occasion in the last five years whereby the ombudsman found maladministration against the council for misusing a Section 32 (3) notice.

A search of the LGO investigation records for the last six months has been carried out in order to review and check the time estimate given in the Council's response to your original request.

It took an officer approximately two hours to check electronic records only (please bear in mind there are also paper files) for LGO investigations during the last six months. It was found that during that period there were 6 cases in which the Council asked for information to be withheld from the complainant under Section 32 of the LGA 1974. They were cases such as neighbour nuisance, education appeals and court of protection, and concerned protection of privacy for third parties where third party information was involved. The Council does not withhold info from the LGO investigators.

On this basis it is estimated that it may be possible to search through the Council's LGO investigation case files for the last two years only, which would fall within the appropriate time and cost limit as set out in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. However, it is noted that this is not what you requested. To search through all 298 case files would exceed the appropriate limits. In this regard, the decision of the reviewing officer is that the Council's original response is upheld.

However, please can you advise whether you are able to refine your request in order to enable the Council to deal with it within appropriate time and cost limits? If there is a particular time frame or period that you would want us to search, please let us know.

Reference: RFI 2156 Internal Review

The information supplied to you is owned by the council unless otherwise stated and may be protected by copyright. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research or for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use of a commercial nature will require the permission of the Council. Further enquiries in this respect should be directed to Head of Legal Services, North Tyneside Council, Quadrant The Silver Link North, Cobalt Business Park, North Tyneside, NE27 0BY