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Dear Mr Hardwicke Curruthers,

Please see attached our acknowledgement letter.

Thank you.

Caroline Barker

Paralegal

Legal Services Castle Point Borough Council

Telephone No: 01268 882434

Fax No. 01268 882453

e-mail: [1][email address]

Website: [2]www.castlepoint.gov.uk

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Mr Hardwick Carruthers,

Please find set out below responses to your recent Freedom of Information
Request.

Regards

Cheryl Salmon
Senior Committee Officer
[email address]
Tel. 01268 882454 (Direct Line)
Fax 01268 882455

1. 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;

No elected representatives were involved in resolving complaints against
Council staff in 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08.

2 sitting on committee's;

Please find attached a copy of the Members' attendance records for
2005/06 2006/07 and 2007/08.

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);

This is not something we are able to quantify. The Council does not
keep records of the various activities elected representatives undertake
as part of their role. This would vary for each individual Councillor.

2. 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.

Please see attached information regarding Members' Allowances.

3. 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.

The number of complaints recorded under our corporate complaint's
system are:

2005/06 = 11
2006/07 = 42
2007/08 = 31

Each of these complaints were resolved before they reached the stage where
they would be considered by elected representatives.

4. 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.

No complaints reached the stage where they were considered by
elected representatives.

No staff ceased to be employed by the authority as a direct result
of a complaint against the Council.

5. 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.

The compensation paid to complainants in previous years has been
as follows:

2005/06 - None
2006/07 - £350 goodwill payment to one resident
2007/08 - Two time and trouble payments of £50 each.

6. 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).

2005/06 - £200 settlement
2006/07 - None
2007/08 - £100 settlement

All payments were met in full.

7. 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.

It is not possible to provide details of the cost of administering our
complaint's system or the number of staff employed for that purpose as
this is difficult to quantify. Any complaints received are forwarded to
the relevant council departments for the relevant staff to deal with. If
the complaint is not satisfactorily resolved it will then pass to the Head
of Service for that department to deal with and finally, if no
satisfactory resolution can be found, it will be investigated by the
Council's Corporate Complaint's officer, if requested by the complainant.
I attach a copy of our complaint's procedure for your information.

The total number of staff employed by the authority for the years stated
was as follows:-

1^st April 2005 - 397
1^st April 2006 - 405
1^st April 2007 - 356
1^st April 2008 - 354

With regard to the pay increase received by the Chief Executive, I would
refer you to the Council's Annual Statement of Accounts for those years.
These can be found on the Castle Point Borough Council's website by
searching "Statement of Accounts". The information you require is
contained on page 22 of the Statement of Accounts for 2007/08 and on Page
17 of the Statement of Accounts for 2006/07.

Attachments

<<16-5-06 AI16 Record of attendances.xls>> <<Record of Att 2006-07.xls>>
<<Record of Att 2007-08.xls>> <<MEMBERS SUMMARY 56.xls>> <<MEMBERS
SUMMARY.xls>> <<Members SUMMARY 7-8.xls>> <<Customer Care Form.doc>>

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