I attach a pdf copy of the response to your complaint.  As we have no postal address we are unable to post a copy to you. 


Steve Heappey
 
Director of Customer and Corporate Services
Luton Borough Council
Website www.luton.gov.uk 

-----Original Message-----
From: Vicky Gray [mailto:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx] 
Sent: 09 January 2009 15:05
To: ~LBC Freedom of Information
Subject: Complaint - Internal review of Freedom of Information request - Bullying and Harassment

     Dear Sir or Madam,

     Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
     Information reviews.

     I am writing to request an internal review of Luton Borough
     Council's handling of my FOI request 'Bullying and Harassment'.

     A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
     available on the Internet at this address:
     http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/bullying_and_harassment_23

     As a council they will have to record sickness absence in a format
     to send form HR to Payroll in order for SSP to be calculated (even
     for cases where staff still receive full pay) So there will be some
     sort or record detailing absence.

     As a council one would expect they would employ a welfare officer,
     who would be advised of all staff absent due to stress or those who
     had said they were being bullied, it would be part of the duty of
     care under both the Health & Safety At Work Act 1974 and also under
     most contracts of employment. Details would have to be passed to
     that person or an appointed person in HR.

     One would assume that a council would have a welfare officer, who
     would be advised of all staff absent due to stress or those who had
     said they were being bullied, it would be part of their duty of
     care under both the Health & Safety At Work Act 1974 and also under
     most contracts of employment. So details would have to be passed to
     that person or an appointed person in HR. All records of bullying
     would be kept.

     When the council state there is no records of bullying from 2007
     what did do they do with the records shred them or just not bother
     to record them. Under the Health & Safety At Work Act 1974 councils
     should keep records of alleged bullying incidents.

     The suggestion that to search through the files over four years is
     slightly puzzling as one would imagine each file would have a
     section dealing with sickness absence. If the files are manual
     files held in what the Data Protection Act refers to as a "Manual
     relevant structured filing system," one would expect it would take
     at most a minute to extract a file from a cabinet, open it, turn up
     the sickness tab and glance at the sheet and scribble a note if the
     file refers to stress/depression and put it back again. The
     "relevant cost limit" from Section 12 is £450 or two and a half
     days work. By those figures, one would expect you to be able to
     review 1000 files in that time. If they ran a query on a database,
     they could identify all employees who had been off sick in the
     period I have requested and then look at these files.

     On the basis of the foregoing, I would ask that a review be carried
     out and that I be advised of the outcome of that review within the
     timescales deemed appropriate in the Information Commissioner's
     recent guidance.

     I look forward to hearing from you.

     Yours sincerely

     Vicky Gray

     

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