Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to know the average proportion of time the elected
representatives of your authority spend as part of their duties for
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 on their main activities. The
activities that form their duties (employment) as an elected
representative are:

1 directly resolving complaints against the executive (Council
Staff) of the Council by residents; 2 sitting on committee's; 3
acting for the political parties that they represent and/or
ceremonial duties (i.e. all time not spent on sitting on a
Committee or resolving a complaint against the executive);

The total time spent by an elected representative for a Council on
these three activities should be 100 per cent of the time they
spend 'working for a Council' as an elected representative.

I would additionally like to know how much in total was paid to
local councillors to meet all their duties (including expenses) for
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 by your authority, and how many
elected representatives are (and were) represented on your
authority for these years.

I would also like to know how many Complaints in total were
submitted to your Council in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 for
each year. I would further like to know how many of these
complaints were formally considered by an elected representative
for each of these years.

I would further like to know how many complaints against the
Executive (Council staff) led to the elected representatives
formally identifying that the Executive had acted wrongly for the
years 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008, and how many of these
formal determinations by the elected representatives identify that
there was no wrong-doing by the Executive. How many staff employed
by your authority in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 ceased to
be employed by your authority as a direct result of a complaint
against the Executive, and the Councillors identifying this to be
the case.

I would further like to know how much money the Council has paid to
a complainant (i.e. victim of a Council's wrongdoing) through its
own complaints system (i.e. excluding any intervention by the Local
Government Ombudsman, Valuation Tribunal or similar body) in
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008.

I would like to know how much money either in the form of local
settlement or additional formal finding of maladministration
causing injustice the Local Government Ombudsman has recommended
that your Council pay in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 (for
each year) and if the Local Government Ombudsman's recommendations
have been met in full (including any non-financial recommendations
for each year)). Please detail any recommendation that has not been
met in full and provide a copy of the Elected representatives
decision. Please additionally identify if these costs were met
directly by Council Tax Payers or the Council's insurers (excluding
self insurance by a Council)

Finally, please provide details of the financial cost of
administering all your complaints systems (including FoI and DP) by
the Executive for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 and the number
of staff employed in administering complaints and resolving these
(Full time equivalent staffing levels). Please also provide details
of your total administrative costs for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and
2007/2008 and the total number of staff employed by your authority,
as well as any pay increase (including increments) made to the
Council's Chief Executive (Head of Paid Service) in pounds sterling
for each of these years. Please additionally identify if the Chief
Executives wages included performance related payments.

If you do not have this reasonably basic management information
related to complaints and/or identify that the costs of accessing
the information requested will be more than £450 please state this
and identify that your Authority does not have either a functioning
or accountable complaints system, and does not maintain any basic
management information related to this issue.

If you have a complaints system not fit for purpose please identify
which political party currently controls your Council, and if this
political party has appointed the current Electoral Registration
and Returning Officer through its control of the Council (with date
of their formal appointment). Please name the current Electoral
Registration and Returning Officer, and identify if they are also
Head of Paid Service, and Clerk to your Authority. Please
additionally provide any documentation maintained by your Local
Authorities Head of Paid Service identifying that they personally
do not believe it to be appropriate for your Council to have a
complaints system that is fit for purpose. This documentation
should be in existence due to the provisions of s4 of the Local
Government Act 1989.

Yours faithfully

Stuart HARDWICKE CARRUTHERS

I am currently out of the office. If your email is urgent, please contact Sandra Maddern ([email address] Tel: 01209 614362). Thank you.

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Morning

Thank you for your request as detailed below.

Mrs Pattison is currently on leave and I will bring this request to her attention upon her return.

If you have any complaints in respect of this response to your request for information, please write to the Council's Feedback Officer at the address below or complete the on-line complaint form that can be found at www.kerrier.gov.uk. If your complaint is not resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner's Office for an independent review of your complaint. The contact details for the Information commissioner's office are:

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AK

Tel: 01625 545 745
Fax: 01625 524 510
Email: [email address]

Regards

Michelle Pattison
Personal Assistant to
Nick Tregenna, Interim Director and Chief Financial Officer

Kerrier District Council
Council Offices, Dolcoath Avenue, Camborne, Cornwall, TR14 8SX

Tel: 01209 614322  ~  Fax: 01209 614496  ~  E-Mail: [Kerrier District Council request email]

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Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Thank you for your request for information under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

The Council's responses to the points you have raised are set out below. As you have not numbered your paragraphs, I have identified the separate points by a brief summary of each.

It is noted that you have used the term 'executive' to refer to the Council's staff rather than the elected members of the Council's Cabinet who comprise the Executive under the Leader and Cabinet model.

1 Time spent on duties by elected Members

This part of the request you have made would require contact to be made with each of the Council's members to ascertain from them how they spent their time. You will gather from the nature of the position of elected Members that much of the work that they do is undertaken other than at formal meetings of the Council and its committees along with related responsibilities. The duties you have identified seem to include duties that they will undertake on behalf of their political parties outside of the official duties of the Council. If the Council was to be able to provide a response to this point it would effectively have to create information, which it is not obliged to do, as well as carrying out an analysis of the information the members provided alongside the records of committee attendances and the like. The view of the Legal Services Manager, who has responsibility for amongst other things Committee Services, is that that analysis would require the allocation of in excess of 18 hours which, applying the Council's rate of £25 per hour, would take the cost of providing this information beyond the appropriate limit. For this reason this part of your request will not be answered.

2 Members allowances and expenses payments

The total amounts paid to the Council's members, including expenses, for the years to which your request relates are set out below. The Council has been comprised of 44 elected members for a number of years, and including the period to which your request relates, but more recently has had independent members (members of the public) appointed to its Audit and Standards & Ethics Committees. There are currently 44 elected members, 1 independent member on the Audit Committee and 5 independent members on the Standards & Ethics Committee. The Standards & Ethics Committee also has 2 Town and Parish Council representatives. You will presumably appreciate that with resignations and the like there are from time to time minor variances in the number of members until vacancies are filled.

£

2005

227158.48

2006

236871.04

2007

235685.32

3 Number of complaints submitted and those considered by an elected representative

The Council's complaints process requires complaints to be logged on an annual basis rather than by financial year. Accordingly, the data that is provided below is by calendar year as already recorded and I hope that you find this acceptable. You will see from the data provided below that some complaints are noted as having been referred to the Standards & Ethics (S&E) Committee. This is the final stage of the Council's complaints procedure, the Standards & Ethics Committee being comprised of elected members, independent members and co-opted Town and Parish Council representatives.

Year

Number of complaints

Number of complaints referred to S&E Committee

2005

46

3

2006

61

4

2007

49

3

2008

19 to date

0 to date

4 Findings in relation to complaints against Council staff

This information will follow within the next few days.

5 Monies paid to complainants through the internal Complaints Procedure

For the periods mentioned no payments have been made to complainants as a result of complaints being dealt with during the Council's Complaints Procedure. The Council has attempted to settle a complaint locally but the complainant declined the Council's offer.

6 LGO maladministration awards

The total financial awards recommended by the LGO for the periods to which your request relates are set out below. All payments have been made and all non-financial recommendations for the periods have also been complied with. The payments will have been made from the Council's external settlements budget and that budget then reimbursed from the budget of the Service from which the complaint was generated. There would have been no monies from the Council's insurers for these payments.

Year complaint received

£

2005/2006

650

2006/2007

500

2007/2008

1275

7 Cost of administering the complaints system

The Council employs an officer who has responsibility for administering the Complaints Procedure on behalf of the Council. That responsibility is currently undertaken by the Council's Feedback Officer who also works closely with the Council's Monitoring Officer in the role of Statutory Support Officer. Necessarily, the consideration of complaints requires input from time to time by a number of different officers, and on occasion members, according to the nature and subject matter of the complaint. The responsibilities of the Feedback Officer and the Monitoring Officer extend far beyond issues covered by the Council's Complaints Procedure. The cost of dealing with complaints is absorbed into the work of all those involved in the complaints process and so is not easily identifiable. However, the approximate cost of those most directly involved in the complaints process, being the Monitoring Officer and the Feedback Officer, on the basis that the Feedback Officer spends one third of her time dealing with the Complaints Procedure and the Monitoring Officer spends one-twentieth of his time on the Procedure, equates to £16299.83.

8 Total administrative costs and establishment numbers

The Council's total administrative costs and the number of staff employed for the years mentioned are set out below. Your reference to administrative costs has been taken to refer to staff costs.

Year

Administrative costs

Number of staff

2005/2006

£10,905,310.00

388.8

2006/2007

£11,868,000.00

396.9

2007/2008

£12,192,150.00

389

NOTE: This is for all staff

9 Chief Executive's pay

The published pay bands within which the Chief Executive's salary fell for the years mentioned are set out below. The Council's salary arrangements for the Chief Executive do not include performance related payments.

Year

Salary band in £

2005/2006

70,000 - 79,999

2006/2007

80,000 - 89,999

2007/2008

90,000 - 99,999

10 Complaints procedure and management information

The Council's Complaints Procedure is available on the Council's web site. It is fit for purpose and accords with recommended best practice. Management information, such as is required is maintained and indeed information relating to the complaints is regularly reported to the Council's Management Team and the Standards & Ethics Committee.

11 Other issues

Other issues that you have raised are dealt with below. The requests made in the final paragraph of your request seem to have been requested only on the basis that the Council has a complaints system that is not fit for purpose. I have already stated that the Council's complaints system is fit for purpose but the information will be provided in any event.

(i) There is currently no controlling party. However, the largest group within the Council is the Independent Group which is made up of elected members who are not aligned to any political party.

(ii) The Electoral Registration and Returning Officer was appointed by Council on 31 July 2002. I have not checked what the party ratios were at the time of that meeting but it is believed that, as has largely been the case for the life of the Council since 1974, the Council was a hung Council.

(iii) Electoral Registration and Returning Officer - Nigel Richards.

(iv) Head of Paid Service - Barry Manning, Chief Executive.

(v) There is no-one appointed in the role of Clerk to the Council. Should it be of assistance, the Council's Monitoring Officer, who is also the Council's Legal Services Manager, is Matthew Stokes, Solicitor.

(vi) There is no documentation maintained by the Chief Executive to the effect that he does not believe it to be appropriate for the Council to have a complaints system that is fit for purpose. That is hardly surprising given that it would be a ludicrous proposition for such a position to be taken.

If you have any complaints in respect of this response to your request for information, please write to the Council's Feedback Officer at the address below or complete the on-line complaint form that can be found at www.kerrier.gov.uk <http://www.kerrier.gov.uk/> . If your complaint is not resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner's Office for an independent review of your complaint. The contact details for the Information Commissioner's Office are:

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Tel: 01625 545 745

Fax: 01625 524 510

Email: [email address]

Michelle Pattison

Personal Assistant to

Nick Tregenna, Interim Director and Chief Financial Officer

Kerrier District Council
Council Offices, Dolcoath Avenue, Camborne, Cornwall, TR14 8SX

Tel: 01209 614322 ~ Fax: 01209 614496 ~ E-Mail: [Kerrier District Council request email] <mailto:[Kerrier District Council request email]>

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Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Further to my e-mail of yesterday's date, please find below the response to Question 4.

4 Findings in relation to complaints against Council staff

Of the complaints referred to the Standards & Ethics Committee for the periods to which you refer I have set out below the outcomes. This information has been provided with the assistance of the Committee Clerks in the absence of the Feedback Officer and the information does not directly correspond with the information provided as numbered point 3 in my previous e-mail, as that information was provided by the Feedback Officer who has compiled that data on an annual rather than financial year basis.

Period

Outcome of S&E consideration

2005/2006

Complaint dismissed/not upheld - 2

2006/2007

Complaint upheld in part - 3

2007/2008

Complaint dismissed/not upheld - 1

Complaint hearing declined - 2

Michelle Pattison

Personal Assistant to

Nick Tregenna, Interim Director and Chief Financial Officer

Kerrier District Council
Council Offices, Dolcoath Avenue, Camborne, Cornwall, TR14 8SX

Tel: 01209 614322 ~ Fax: 01209 614496 ~ E-Mail: [Kerrier District Council request email]

________________________________

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