Children's Social Services - Complaints/Councillor's /Public

Dear S Smith

Thank you for your email.

I acknowledge your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Assuming we hold this information, I will endeavour
to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later than 26th May
2009 (20 working days from date of receipt).

I will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/09/448 - in any
communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards

Corporate Access to Information Team, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room 1.94, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 696265 or 01622 694261 - Fax: 01622 694383
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...

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Dear S Smith

Thank you for your request for information made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in sending this information to you. We have answered your questions in the order they were raised.

1) Statutory complaints against Children's Social Services are, by definition, from the client or someone closely associated with the client such as a parent, someone with parental responsibility or foster carer and about either a service received or a service having been refused.

The numbers are as follows:

2002-3 176
2003-4 169
2004-5 188
2005-6 179
2006-7 189
2007-8 178
2008-9 187.

2) County Councillors do not make complaints, but do sometimes receive them on behalf of the County Council and raise them with or pass them on to the appropriate Directorate. If an issue raised by a constituent falls under the statutory complaints procedure as laid down by Section 26 of the Children Act 1989, it is handled in the same way as complaints received direct from service-users. It is KCC policy that children should be cared for by their parents first unless the care given to them by their parents would cause them or would be likely to cause them significant harm. In these circumstances KCC policy is that children should be placed within their extended family where ever possible.

Complaints are recorded under the name of the person it relates to therefore we would have to check every single complaint to ascertain which ones came direct from County Councillors. We estimate that this would exceed the £450 cost limit (equivalent to 18 hours work at the £25 hourly rate set by the Ministry of Justice). Therefore under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are not obliged to comply with your request and are exercising our right to refuse to deal.

3 & 4) We a have record of Paul Carter being directly approached by one councillor regarding the above, who at the time was affiliated with the Conservative Party. Following a meeting the Leader then replied to the enquiry by letter.

5) We would not have logged the data as coming from a County Councillor but as any other service-user so it would be extremely time-consuming to check as it would involve searching each member's name and address in two databases. We estimate that this would exceed the £450 cost limit (equivalent to 18 hours work at the £25 hourly rate set by the Ministry of Justice). Therefore under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are not obliged to comply with your request and are exercising our right to refuse to deal.

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints process; details can be found at this link http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ... on our website. Please quote reference FOI/09/448.

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the Information Commissioner's website http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Best regards

Michelle Hunt
Access to Information Co-ordinator
Communication & Information Governance
Children, Families & Education Directorate
Kent County Council
Room 2.35, Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XQ
External: 01622 696692
Internal: 7000 6692
Email: [email address]

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Dear S Smith

I have been asked to review the responses that you have received to your
Freedom of Information Act requests numbers 09/447; 09/448; 09/450 and
09/496.

I note in considering your correspondence, that since 13 May 2009 Kent
County Council has corresponded with you in relation to 26 original
requests, requests for further information or requests for a review. I
note also that 21 of these 26 pieces of correspondence have been since 18
May 2009. This volume of correspondence between the Council and one FOI
requester is totally unprecedented. I have also noticed that all of your
requests emanate from a website called “whatdotheyknow.com”. I have
compared the volume of correspondence emanating from Kent County Council
in response to requests with the volume generated by its neighbouring
authorities. I note that whilst Essex has generated 24 pieces of
correspondence, East Sussex 23, Surrey 24 and Bromley 25, over the same
period of time (since March 2008) Kent has generated 97.

Under Section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 public
authorities do not have to comply with vexatious requests. There is no
public interest test.

Whilst I note that the subject matter of your individual requests are
reasonable and are matters in which there can be said to be a genuine
public interest, in my view the number of requests and follow up
correspondence from you, over such a short period of time, is collectively
obsessive and I conclude are not designed to elicit information but
collectively to cause unjustified disruption to the proper functioning of
Kent County Council, irritation to its staff and to impose an
unjustifiable significant burden upon Kent County Council in terms of both
expense and officer time. My conclusion is supported by the fact that on
27 May 2009 you requested that all four of the above FOI requests be
reviewed, but in none of those requests do you explain the basis upon
which you were dissatisfied with the original response. This suggests to
me that your requests for reviews are designed to do nothing more than to
impose further significant burdens upon the limited resources of Kent
County Council in terms of both expense and distraction for no good
reason. Further, given that your motivation appears to be to disrupt Kent
County Council from carrying out its important day to day functions
efficiently, I doubt that any of your recent requests have any serious
purpose or value.

I would remind you that the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act is
to enable the general public to have access to information in which they
have a genuine interest. The purpose is not to allow people to harass
public bodies and thereby waste scarce public funds for their own
amusement or for the amusement of others. Indeed, such activities bring
the Freedom of Information Act regime itself into disrepute.

Accordingly, I am dismissing your three requests for a review in relation
to the Freedom of Information Act requests referred to above on the basis
that they are vexatious in accordance with section 14(1) of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 given that in my view they form part of a sustained
and obsessive campaign by you to disrupt the efficient functioning of Kent
County Council.

If you are unhappy with this decision, you can appeal to the Information
Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the Freedom of Information Act
2000. Details of what you need to do, should you wish to pursue this
course of action, are available from the Information Commissioner’s
website
[1]http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.u...

Yours sincerely

Mark Radford

Mark Radford
Senior Solicitor,
Litigation, Employment and Education Team,
Legal and Democratic Services,
Room 1.110 Sessions House,
Kent County Council,
Maidstone, Kent. ME14 1XQ.
Tel - (01622) 694396

[2]www.kent.gov.uk/legal

References

Visible links
1. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.u...
http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.u...
2. http://www.kent.gov.uk/legal


Dear S Smith

I have noticed a typographical error in my penultimate paragraph i.e.three
requests should have read four requests and for the avoidance of doubt I
have amended the same.

Yours sincerely
Mark Radford
Mark Radford
Senior Solicitor,
Litigation, Employment and Education Team,
Legal and Democratic Services,
Room 1.110 Sessions House,
Kent County Council,
Maidstone, Kent. ME14 1XQ.
Tel (01622) 694396

[1]www.kent.gov.uk/legal

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Radford, Mark - CED L&DS
Sent: 10 June 2009 09:37
To: 'S Smith'; 'S Smith'; 'S Smith'; 'S Smith'
Subject: Review of FOI requests

Dear S Smith

I have been asked to review the responses that you have received to your
Freedom of Information Act requests numbers 09/447; 09/448; 09/450 and
09/496.

I note in considering your correspondence, that since 13 May 2009 Kent
County Council has corresponded with you in relation to 26 original
requests, requests for further information or requests for a review. I
note also that 21 of these 26 pieces of correspondence have been since 18
May 2009. This volume of correspondence between the Council and one FOI
requester is totally unprecedented. I have also noticed that all of your
requests emanate from a website called “whatdotheyknow.com”. I have
compared the volume of correspondence emanating from Kent County Council
in response to requests with the volume generated by its neighbouring
authorities. I note that whilst Essex has generated 24 pieces of
correspondence, East Sussex 23, Surrey 24 and Bromley 25, over the same
period of time (since March 2008) Kent has generated 97.

Under Section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 public
authorities do not have to comply with vexatious requests. There is no
public interest test.

Whilst I note that the subject matter of your individual requests are
reasonable and are matters in which there can be said to be a genuine
public interest, in my view the number of requests and follow up
correspondence from you, over such a short period of time, is collectively
obsessive and I conclude are not designed to elicit information but
collectively to cause unjustified disruption to the proper functioning of
Kent County Council, irritation to its staff and to impose an
unjustifiable significant burden upon Kent County Council in terms of both
expense and officer time. My conclusion is supported by the fact that on
27 May 2009 you requested that all four of the above FOI requests be
reviewed, but in none of those requests do you explain the basis upon
which you were dissatisfied with the original response. This suggests to
me that your requests for reviews are designed to do nothing more than to
impose further significant burdens upon the limited resources of Kent
County Council in terms of both expense and distraction for no good
reason. Further, given that your motivation appears to be to disrupt Kent
County Council from carrying out its important day to day functions
efficiently, I doubt that any of your recent requests have any serious
purpose or value.

I would remind you that the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act is
to enable the general public to have access to information in which they
have a genuine interest. The purpose is not to allow people to harass
public bodies and thereby waste scarce public funds for their own
amusement or for the amusement of others. Indeed, such activities bring
the Freedom of Information Act regime itself into disrepute.

Accordingly, I am dismissing your four requests for a review in relation
to the Freedom of Information Act requests referred to above on the basis
that they are vexatious in accordance with section 14(1) of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 given that in my view they form part of a sustained
and obsessive campaign by you to disrupt the efficient functioning of Kent
County Council.

If you are unhappy with this decision, you can appeal to the Information
Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the Freedom of Information Act
2000. Details of what you need to do, should you wish to pursue this
course of action, are available from the Information Commissioner’s
website
[2]http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.u...

Yours sincerely

Mark Radford

Mark Radford
Senior Solicitor,
Litigation, Employment and Education Team,
Legal and Democratic Services,
Room 1.110 Sessions House,
Kent County Council,
Maidstone, Kent. ME14 1XQ.
Tel - (01622) 694396

[3]www.kent.gov.uk/legal

References

Visible links
1. http://www.kent.gov.uk/legal
2. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.u...
http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.u...
3. http://www.kent.gov.uk/legal

Dear S Smith

Thank you for your email.

The Council is of the opinion that this latest communication, when
considered in conjunction with all the other requests you have
submitted, is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the Council's operations and
is therefore manifestly unreasonable. The Council has no obligation to
respond to requests that are perceived to be either vexatious or repeated
under section 14 (1) & (2) of the Freedom of Information Act
respectively and collectively, your requests fall into this category. The
Council will review this position in three months time but until then, no
further requests from you will be considered.

If you disagree with this stance, you can appeal direct the Information
Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the Freedom of Information Act
2000. This is because there is no-one sufficiently senior within the
Authority that could conduct an independent internal review of this
decision which was made at the highest level. Details of what you need to
do, should you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from
the Information Commissioner*s website .
[1]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Best regards

Caroline Dodge
Corporate Access to Information Coordinator, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room 1.94, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 221652 - Fax: 01622 694383
[2]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...

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