Fortnightly bin collections

Dear Sir or Madam,

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please can you provide copies
of any papers, documents, briefings etc prepared for or by the
Council before the introduction of fortnightly bin collections.
Specifically I am keen to find out whether any advice was received
by the Council concerning health concerns with fortnightly
collections (maggots, rats etc) and whether these were considered
and discussed by the Council before introducing the fortnightly
collections.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Greenwood

Dear Jane

Thank you for your response.

I am happy to wait until your colleague returns, and look forward
to receiving the information in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Greenwood

Dear Jane

I trust your waste and recycling officer has returned safely from
annual leave.

Please can you let me know when I am likely to receive a response
to this request.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Greenwood

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Wirral Borough
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Fortnightly bin collections'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fo...

I note from the response that "The Council's Cabinet approved the
new system in May 2006 in a detailed
report presented to them by the Director of Technical Services."

You then state that this report is exempt from publication, without
providing any reason for this.

As you are no doubt aware from reading the local papers, over the
summer there was a huge volume of complaints about maggots because
of the alternate bin collection scheme. I believe this creates a
strong public interest in knowing whether these problems were
anticipated before the decision was taken to scrap weekly
collections.

As far as I am aware, the release of this report would not be
covered by any of the "absolute exemptions" within the Freedom of
Information Act (information accessible by other means, national
security, court records, parliamentary privilege, personal
information, information provided in confidence, prohibited
disclosure). The only one of these that you may be considering is
information provided in confidence, but this actually relates to
information the release of which would be actionable - as the
report was from your Director of Technical Services to the
Council's Cabinet, it is difficult to see how this could lead to an
actionable breach of confidence.

If you are seeking to rely on other exemptions to avoid releasing
this information, you are obliged to conduct a "public interest"
test, where you determine whether "the public interest in
maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in
disclosing the information". As the council is elected by us, and
this is a matter of considerable interest to local residents, there
is an extremely strong case for releasing this report. I suspect
that the only reason for withholding this report is that it may be
embarrassing to the Council, but this does not constitute a valid
reason for applying an exemption.

I should therefore like you to conduct an Internal Review into the
decision to withhold the detailed
report presented to the Council's Cabinet by the Director of
Technical Services in May 2006, to determine:

1. Why this document has not been released to me.

2. Which exemption(s) under the Freedom of Information Act you are
seeking to rely on to deny me this information.

3. Whether the correct processes were followed within your Freedom
of Information Team to ensure that the public interest test was
properly applied.

4. Why you consider the balance of public interest in this case to
be in favour of exempting the document from release.

I hope that if you are unable to provide a clear justification for
withholding this report, you will release it to me without delay.

As someone who has had maggots in his bin, and found it quite
disgusting, I am determined to find out what the Council was told
before introducing this dreadful scheme, and rest assured I shall
be taking this matter to the Information Commissioner if you fail
to provide a satisfactory response.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Greenwood

Dear Ms Corrin

Thank you for responding to my correspondence.

However, if you look at what I asked, it was specifically for an
Internal Review of the decision not to release this information to
me. I had expected this to be handled by an independent person
within the Council rather than simply receiving a follow up message
from you reiterating your belief that the information was exempt.

I should be grateful, therefore, if you could advise me whether
someone independent and suitably senior within the Council will
conduct an Internal Review of this decision, or whether I should go
straight to the Information Commissioner.

Turning to the substance of your correspondence, I note that you
are seeking to rely on section 44 of the Freedom of Information Act
to deny me access to this information, on the basis that the
information was excluded from the minutes under Schedule 12A of the
Local Government Act 1972. Unfortunately this exemption is not
valid in this case. As you will note from the Information
Commissioner's Decision Notice against Vale of Glamorgan Council in
July 2007
(http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/d...),
particularly paragraphs 50-52, the Information Commissioner found
that Schedule 12A DOES NOT operate as a statutory prohibition to
disclosure under s44.

More specifically, I understand the specific provisions (3 and 5)
of 12A relate to "Information relating to the financial or business
affairs of any particular person" and "Information in respect of
which a claim to legal professional privilege could be maintained
in legal proceedings". My request for information was primarily to
understand "whether any advice was received by the Council
concerning health concerns with fortnightly collections (maggots,
rats etc) and whether these were considered and discussed by the
Council before introducing the fortnightly collections". It may
well be that there are some commercial details within the report
prepared by the Director of Technical Services, but there are
adequate provisions to redact these in your response (under s43 of
the FOIA). This should still leave the vast majority of the report
intact, and provide me with the information on whether any
consideration was made of health issues before approving this
fortnightly collection scheme.

So, firstly I would like you to pass this request to whoever deals
with Internal Reviews within Wirral Council. If you have no
Internal Review process, please let me know and I can then go
straight to the Information Commissioner.

Secondly, given that (in line with the Information Commissioner's
decision against Vale of Glamorgan) you cannot use s44 for
information exempted under 12A, please can you indicate which
exemptions (if any) you are now seeking to rely on to deny me (and
the general public) access to this report, and where a public
interest test is required, please provide comprehensive details of
your decision making process given the huge local interest in this
topic.

I look forward to hearing shortly from whoever does Internal
Reviews at Wirral Council.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Greenwood

Dear Ms Lyon

Thank you for your response to my request for an Internal Review,
in response to which you have forwarded me the "Tender Evaluation
Model for the Procurement of Waste Collection, Recycling and Street
Cleansing Services".

Whilst this does give some insight into the methodology for
awarding the contract, it does not actually address what I asked
for in my Freedom of Information Act request, which was "any
papers, documents, briefings etc prepared for or by the
Council before the introduction of fortnightly bin collections" and
more specifically "whether any advice was received by the Council
concerning health concerns with fortnightly collections (maggots,
rats etc) and whether these were consideredand discussed by the
Council before introducing the fortnightly
collections."

In the initial response from Ms Corrin, she advised that "the
Council's Cabinet approved the new system in May 2006 in a detailed
report presented to them by the Director of Technical Services",
claiming this to be exempt from publication under s44 of the Act
(as it was exempted from the minutes Schedule 12A of the Local
Government Act 1972). She did state that this report outlined three
key reasons for considering alternate weekly collections of waste.

My request for an internal review was primarily aimed at seeking
the release of the report presented by the Director of Technical
Services, following the Information Commissioner's Decision Notice
against Vale of Glamorgan Council in July 2007 which stated, inter
alia, that Schedule 12A does not operate as a statutory prohibition
to disclosure under s44.

I have reviewed the document you have now sent me and clearly this
is not the document referred to by Ms Corrin (as it does not
outline the three key reasons for considering alternate
collections). In fact, it is difficult to see what relevance this
document has in determining whether and how the Council considered
the issues of rats, maggots etc before agreeing to this proposal.
Indeed, you could argue that the evaluation model does not seem to
take much (if any) account of the negative impact of alternate
collection schemes.

Accordingly, I should like to reiterate my request for the release
of the detailed report presented to the Cabinet by the Director of
Technical Services in May 2006, which set out why the Council
should adopt fortnightly bin collections.

I should be grateful if you could advise me whether you intend to
release this report or whether I need to complain to the
Information Commissioner. There is a clear public interest in the
release of this report, especially given the problems many people
in the area had last summer with maggots. I am confident that the
Information Commissioner will find in my favour.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Greenwood

Dear Ms Lyons,

I refer to my email of 15 December to Rosemary Lyon concerning her
response to my Internal Review request on the release of a report
presented to the Council's Cabinet in May 2006 by the Director of
Technical Services. Full details of the request are available at
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fo....

In summary, I was advised on 11 November that the Council agreed
the introduction of Alternate Bin Collections following review of
the report I am seeking to read. This was initially denied to me
claiming a s44 exemption to the Freedom of Information Act, as
initially it was excluded from the Council Minutes under the Local
Government Act. I asked for a review as this is inappropriate - s44
does not apply in such cases - and I provided a recent case to
demonstrate this.

Following this, Ms Lyons, apparently accepting this, sent me a
report, but this was not the one I asked to see, but rather a
general document on how tenders were evaluated. So I asked again on
15 December for the relevant report to be released.

To date, I have received nothing from you, not even an
acknowledgement.

I am therefore reiterating my request for the report from the
Director of Technical Services to the Council's Cabinet in May 2006
to be released under the Freedom of Information Act. Please can you
advise me as soon as possible whether you are prepared to do this.

If I do not hear from you by the end of next week (29/1), I shall
assume you are not willing to comply with your obligations under
the Freedom of Information Act and shall make appropriate
representations to the Information Commissioner.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Greenwood