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

Your application for Freedom of Information has been received.

Your application reference is 101000270911

Chief Executive's Directorate

Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall
Topsham Road
Exeter
EX2 4QD

Tel: 01392 384678
Email: [Devon County Council request email]
Fax: 01392 383165

26th August 2008

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Freedom of Information Request: 101000270911

I am in receipt of your request dated 23rd August 2008 (received 26th August 2008) for information held by Devon County Council about various activities of elected councillors, complaints against staff and various costs.

You are entitled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to be informed whether or not the information you have requested is held by Devon County Council and if so to be given access to that information within 20 working days (subject to any exemptions).

You will receive a response to your request by 23rd September 2008.

D R Gardener
Information Management Support Officer
Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall
Exeter EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 384678

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Dear Mr Carruthers

I refer to your email of 23 August 2008 requesting information about, inter alia, time spent by elected members on their duties, allowances, complaints, ombudsman complaints and staffing costs.

In relation to your questions concerning time spent by members on specific tasks I must advise you that the Council does not hold that information and I estimate that the time it will take to undertake the necessary search, retrieval and checking work with every elected member and throughout the whole of the Council to enable us to respond to your request will exceed the fee limit as set out in the Freedom of Information Fees Regulations. Therefore, the Council is not obliged to provide a response.

Turning to your questions about members allowances and the number of complaints received I must point out that the information held by the Council in this regard is already publicly available either under the Council's FOI Publication Scheme or other legislation which means, technically, that the Council is of course exempt from responding to specific requests of this nature because it is already available by other means.

With regard to Members Allowances, the Council is required by law to publish annually details of the allowances paid to members including overall figures for travelling and subsistence. These are published annually - around June/July - as part of the Revenue Outturn for the previous year and considered by the Council's Executive. Those papers were published, as part of the agenda for those meetings, on the Council's website at: http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/your_counc...

However, for convenience and because I have copies available I also attach copies of the schedules for 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08 which were published as part of the Revenue Outturn for those years and considered by the Council's Executive.

<<Summary of members allowances 2005-06 ROB.xls>> <<Summary of members allowances 2006-07 ROB.xls>> <<Summary of members allowances 2007-08 Strategy.xls>>
The Council's current Members Allowances Scheme which shows the various allowances payable to members and is available on the Council's website at:
http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/your_counc...

You should be aware that Councillors' allowances, which are taxed and from which they have to pay their own 'running costs', are among the lowest in the region. Changes in allowances proposed by an Independent Panel have been met entirely from the Council's annual efficiency savings. The County Council has not implemented in full increases previously proposed by the Independent Panel and Councillors have also rejected proposals for pensions.

In relation to the number of elected members on the Council in recent years .. I can confirm that since 1974 the number of Devon County Councillors has fluctuated between 98 (1974-1983), 85 (1983-1998), 54 (1998-2005) and 62 (2005-2008).

In relation to your various questions about staffing and costs, I am afraid I am not able to provide the information you want without clarification. For example, in relation to administrative costs how do you define that term? Are you referring simply to salaries/wages (and if so does that include on-costs such as employer contributions of NI and pensions) or do you also take to mean accommodation, travel, other expenses, training, support, recruitment, occupational health etc,. Similarly - in relation to staffing numbers - do you mean the total number of different individuals paid by the County Council in a given month, the total number of posts or total number of FTEs? Do you mean permanent employees only or temporary staff or contracted workers as well and those for instance on long term statutory maternity/paternity/adoption leave.

The Council publishes some general information on staffing profiles - which you may find helpful - at:

http://www.devon.gov.uk/staffprofilechar...

General information about actual expenditure in the years in question will of course have been published as part of the budget and/or Annual Statement of Accounts for those years .. which again are publicly available and on the Council's website.

Over and above that, and as indicated above, I estimate that the time it will take to undertake the necessary search, retrieval and checking work throughout the whole of the Council to enable us to respond to your request will exceed the fee limit as set out in the Freedom of Information Fees Regulations - where that information would not be exempt under the Data Protection Act..

With regard to complaints (both generally and in relation to the involvement of the Ombudsman's) details of complaints received and dealt with by the ombudsman are the subject of reports to the Council's Executive and/or its Standards Committee on a regular basis and these are again available on the Council's website at: http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/your_counc...

However - and with regard to Ombudsman Complaints in particular - and as your organisation has already been told I can tell you that ..........:

From 1998-2007 there were two findings of maladministration against the County Council. In neither case did the Council decline to implement the Ombudsman's recommendations.

The Ombudsman's findings are a matter of public record and each year he publishes statistics for every local authority in England. In recent years he has begun writing an annual letter to every Council with comments on the complaints against each and how they were dealt with. These letters too are public documents and available on his website www.lgo.org.uk along with his annual reports.

In Devon all maladministration findings have for about the last 20 years been reported to the responsible committee of the Council. Since 2001 these reports have gone to the Executive and the Standards Committee and are considered in public session. Part of that consideration is the action to be taken in response to the Ombudsman's recommended remedy. In my own experience (which goes back to the mid/late 1980s) the Council has never refused to act as the Ombudsman has recommended and the reports concerned have always been considered in public session (nowadays broadcast over the internet).

Since 1999 we have made an annual report to the Executive on the past year's cases and the last such report is on the internet here:

http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/democracyc...

The statistic of complaints against Devon since 1991 are:

Calendar year Complaints received ... of which
Premature Local settlement Maladministration
1991 53 n/a n/a n/a
1992 41 n/a n/a n/a
1993 53 n/a n/a n/a
1994 54 n/a 3 1
1995 71 n/a 4 1
1996 64 n/a 6 0
1997 77 n/a 7 3
1998 62 n/a 4 0
1999 46 n/a 0 0
2000 45 9 1 0
2001 41 10 2 0
2002 56 12 6 0
2003 47 7 6 1
2004 73 29 3 0
2005 74 23 6 0
2006 52 10 4 1
2007 47 11 3 0

Notes:

1991-1994 Only incomplete data now available.

1997 One local settlement and one finding of maladministration (not leading to any injustice) occurred after the complaints had transferred to successor authorities at reorganisation. The findings were against DCC but it was for the unitary authorities to find a remedy.

1998 Breakdown of cases: 54 for Devon; 8 complaints regarding Torbay or Plymouth were received prior to Local Government Reorganisation on 1 April. (Since then, Torbay and Plymouth have been unitary authorities, so not part of Devon for these figures)

2004 Totals include a premature complaint with nine co-signatories, counted by the Ombudsman as nine separate complaints.

2005 Totals include 12 complaints about the Kingskerswell Bypass proposal.

If for any reason you are not satisfied with how your request has been handled, please write to our Freedom of Information Office, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, EX2 4QJ or complete the on-line complaint form that can be found at www.devon.gov.uk. If your complaint is not resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by Devon County Council will have been produced by local officials and will be our copyright. If you would like to re-use any of the information which has been supplied to you, please contact us.

Information you receive which is not subject to our copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any information

R C Hooper
Committee & Member Services Manager
Chief Executive's Directorate
Devon County Council
County Hall
Exeter
Devon
EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 382300
Fax: 01392 382286
email: [email address]
Website: http://www.devon.gov.uk
Disclaimer: http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml

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Rob Hooper would like to recall the message, "".

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Total numbers of employees at DCC (as published in the Quarterly Earnings Survey):

2004/05 33,705
2005/06 33590
2007/08 32'814

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Dear Rob Hooper,

Many thanks for your various reply's. Firstly I am not part of an
organisation seeking information into your Council's complaints
systems.

I have had a look at your website and have been unable to locate
the information identified. Please supply the links.

I am specifically interested in how your Council administers its
own complaints system. This will include both maladministration and
decisions made on the merits (normally with advice being provided
by professionals).. as you will be aware the Ombudsman does not and
is not able to examine decisions made on the merits.

The costs of administering complaints systems has not been
provided.

Various management data appears to not be maintained.. the reasons
in some cases can be understood. However, it does suggest that the
complaints system is not subject to active management control.

You fail to identify if the Complaints system is fit for purpose..
and if the current electoral registration officer (ERO) and
returning officer (RO) was appointed by the current council (and
the date of their appointment). It is understood (from lack of
information on your web site) that the current ERO and RO was not
appointed by the current council.. this would mean that there is no
linkage between the political process and the Council's complaints
system.. so it would be difficult for the Council to act as a Court
(which it is) in relation to decisions made on the merits (that are
identifiably flawed)..

Please provide the information requested.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

The links to the relevant pages of the Council's website - which in turn
acts as the link to the various Committee agenda and minutes pages was
included in my previous email. I have however repeated it here for
convenience if it did not work.
http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/your_counc...
utes.htm

From that page you will be able to access the agenda, minutes and
reports of the Council's Executive and Standards Committee to which I
have referred previously.

As to your questions about our complaints procedure I have previously
indicated that I estimate that the time it will take to undertake the
necessary search, retrieval and checking work throughout the whole of
the Council to enable us to respond to your request as to the costs of
administering the system will exceed the fee limit as set out in the
Freedom of Information Fees Regulations - where that information would
not be exempt under the Data Protection Act.

However I am sure my colleagues would confirm that our Complaints
procedure is fit for purpose and I will ask them to so confirm .. and to
let you have any other information that they can.

With regard to the appointment of the Council's Returning Officer this
is included in Part 3 of the Councils current Constitution (see link
below) first adopted in March 2002 and revised in 2005 by the current
Council, appointing the County Solicitor as Returning Officer.
http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/your_counc....
htm

The County Council is not an Electoral Registration Authority. That is a
District Council function.

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As indicated in my previous email I am now able to let you have some
further available information about our complaints procedure.

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