Council constitutions

Dear Sir or Madam,

Since the adoption of the Local Government Act 2000 (s37) all
Council's in England have been required to have written
constitutions. Written constitutions give protection under the ECHR
to citizens.

On how many occassions has the LGO identified a breach of a
Council's written constitution as part of an investigation. Please
identify the outcome of any breach identified against outcome of
complaint and business area of the council using the LGO's own
classification scheme for each year that Council's have been
required to have a written constitution.

Please further identify what guidance the LGO's provide to their
investigators to check Council constitutions, and on how many
occassions the LGO investigators have raised constitutional issues
with a Council's monitoring officer (by year and Council), and
identify a breach of a Council Constitution as maladministration
causing injustice.

This is basic management data that takes account of changes in the
administration of public authoritorities in England to provide
protection afforded by the Human Rights Act. Any failure of the
CLAE not have colected this information for the LGO's would
jeopodise their role to ensure that the Human Rights Act was
correctly deployed in England by Council's. This information is of
great public interest.

Yours faithfully,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear Foi Officer,

I have already explained the reason for the request in the document
supplied on 11 February 2009.

It is a simple request since 2000 all Council's in England have
been required to have written constitutions. The purpose of the
request is to determine if the LGO and CLAE choose to identify that
a Council breaching a written constitution (and the protection it
provides under the ECHR) is maladministration. In countries that
have written constitutions it would be identified as such.

There is currently an inquiry into this and related issues by the
Commission on Standards in Public Life. It is also anticipated that
the issue will be raised directly with the CLAE and Secretary of
State by consumers and others.

There is great discussion about the information released by the
CLAE some of which it is aware of (i.e. is public) and some of
which it is not, as the LGO's appear to be at that nexus of what
appears to be abuse of the ECHR by local council's..

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear Sir or Madam,

As far as I can determine I have actually now sent about 60 FoI
requests through this site. The majority of the requests could have
been dealt with very simply - by the CLAE having published complete
records on its web site (i.e. all annual reports, management data,
etc.) and by being a transparent organisation.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS