Your Ref: Tel: 01205 314330

Our Ref: CE015 Fax: 01205 364604

E-mail: [email address]

19 January 2009

Mr T Nunn

(by email)

Dear Mr Nunn

Complaint re FOI request: LGO investigations

Thank you for your email concerning the complaint about the Freedom of Information Enquiry received at Boston Borough Council on 3 October 2008. I understand you have had an acknowledgement from the Council and this stated that the investigating officer would be Sue Lawson, Communications Manager.

Ms Lawson has requested that I investigate your complaint because the delay in replying was caused because of a mistake made by the Communications team, which is responsible for dealing with FOI enquiries and Complaints.

I have looked through the Council's files and checked the records for Freedom of Information enquiries. From looking through the Boston Borough Council system I can see that although your request was forwarded to the correct section dealing with FOI enquiries, it was not logged or acknowledged. This error meant that your enquiry was not looked into and no response was sent.

It is unclear why this happened; but I believe that human error was the main cause. The communications team took over responsibility for Freedom of Information enquiries around this time and there was a transfer period which may explain why the request was missed.

I can only apologise for the delay in responding to your enquiry, and conclude that your complaint is justified. I will be speaking with the section to ensure all processes are double checked and that lessons are learned.

In response to your original Freedom of Information enquiry I understand that a response will be sent in the next couple of days. If you are unhappy with the outcome of this complaint investigation you can either contact the Chief Executive

directly or contact the Local Government Ombudsman. I enclose a copy of the Council's complaints procedure and you can find an information leaflet about the Local Government Ombudsman's process at www.lgo.org.uk.

Yours sincerely

Steve Lumb

Assistant Chief Executive

Enc

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