Chief Executive's

Legal and Governance

Assistant Chief Executive

Liz Bashforth

Town Hall SHEFFIELD S1 2HH

Your Ref:

Our Ref: PJH/

Date: 25 February 2009

Mr Trevor Nunn

[email address]

Dear Mr Nunn

Request Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA 2000) - LGO Investigations Received 14 January 2009

I thank you for the above request.

You requested:-

“During the last five years how many times has the Local Government Ombudsman (as a result of investigating a complaint against Sheffield City Council) brought to the attention of the Council the fact that a member of Sheffield City Council staff had misled them lied to them or done anything to hinder their investigation.

If they have, what disciplinary action was taken against the individual's concerned by the council”.

To the best of the knowledge of the persons who have handled these cases over this period, no such findings against the City Council have been made by the Local Government Ombudsman, and as a consequence there has been no such disciplinary action against any officer of the City Council. I hope that this satisfies your request.

It should be noted that the City Council has had some 940 files commissioned in respect of Local Government Ombudsman Investigations for the period in question. To properly assess them all under the terms of the above requests and locate and identify the specific information you have requested would bring it within the ambit of Section 12 of the FOIA 2000. The City Council does not routinely keep such statistical information, and the only way to establish such information directly would be to go through every single file, a time consuming process.

If this is not the information you require please clarify your request in accordance with Section 1(3) of the FOIA 2000, or otherwise the City Council would likely have to issue a refusal notice in accordance with Section 12 of the FOIA 2000, given the amount of officer time that would be required in this matter.

Yours sincerely

Liz Bashforth

LIZ BASHFORTH

Assistant Chief Executive

G: CEX/L&G/CorpLegal/FOIandEIRMatters/Letters/240209A

The person dealing with this matter is Peter Harrow