function council

London Borough of Lewisham - Freedom of Information request - Resources

Our Reference: 31679
https://feedback.lewisham.gov.uk/cus/ser...

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Dear Mr. Hardwicke Carruthers

Your request is being considered and you will receive a response within the
statutory timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of any
exemptions. Where consideration is being given to exemptions the 20 working
day timescale may be extended to a period considered reasonable depending on
the nature and circumstances of your request. In such cases you will be
notified and, where possible, a revised time-scale will be indicated. In all
cases we shall attempt to deal with your request at the earliest
opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of the
information requested where the request exceeds the statutory limit or where
disbursements exceed £10. In such cases you will be informed in writing and
your request will be suspended until we receive payment from you or your
request is modified and/or reduced.
Your request may require either full or partial transfer to another public
authority. You will be informed if your request is transferred.

If we are unable to provide you with the information requested we will
notify you of this together with the reason(s) why and details of how you
may appeal (if appropriate).

Depending on the nature of your request, there is a possibility that the
information held (if any) by Lewisham Council is governed by the Data
Protection Act 1998 or Environmental Information Regulation. Should this be
the case, we will inform you of the situation and issue you the necessary
forms and guidance in order for you to proceed with your search.

Please note that the directorate team may contact you for further
information.

If you have any questions, please contact me on 49928 or email me.

Yours sincerely
Information Governance

If you have any questions, please contact me on 49928 or email me.

Yours sincerely

Michael Abtar

Information Governance Officer

Phone:49928

[email address]

DISCLAIMER

This message is confidential and intended solely for the use of the
individual or entity it is addressed to. If you have received it in
error, please contact the sender and delete the e-mail. To see the full
version of this disclaimer please visit the following address:
http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/AboutThisSite...

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Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers,

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Your request for information, received 26 August 2008, reference 31679,
has now been considered.

We are writing to inform you that we are currently examining the
applicability of qualified exemptions.

As such, the 20 working-day time period no longer applies (section 10(3)
FOIA).

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience. We aim to provide you
with a meaningful response as soon as possible. As a matter of procedure
we aim to offer a response within 20 working days of receipt of this
letter.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Pybus
Corporate Information Governance Officer

DISCLAIMER

This message is confidential and intended solely for the use of the
individual or entity it is addressed to. If you have received it in
error, please contact the sender and delete the e-mail. To see the full
version of this disclaimer please visit the following address:
http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/AboutThisSite...

For advice and assistance about online security and protection from
internet threats visit the "Get Safe Online" website at
http://www.getsafeonline.org

Dear Stuart Hardwicke Carruthers,

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000
Reference No: 31679

Please find a full response to your original information request and
review into the processing of your request as follows. Please note that it
is helpful if you quote our relevant reference number in any
correspondence.

Your request was acknowledged on 26 August 2008. You were then advised on
the 22 September 2008 that it was decided to extend the time for
responding to your request due to the consideration of the applicability
of qualified exemptions. Due to the number of your requests it has taken
some time to work through your specific information requests and to
determine if the information is held and what costs might be incurred for
the retrieval and collation of this information.

We have added a numbering system to your specific requests and our
responses can be found at the very end of these:

1. What was 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:
a. directly resolving complaints against the executive (Council Staff) of
the Council by residents.
b. sitting on committee's.
c. 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).

2. 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?

3. How many complaints in total were submitted to your Council in
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 for each year?

4. How many of these complaints were formally considered by an elected
representative for each of these years?

5. 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?

6. How many of these formal determinations by the elected representatives
identify that there was no wrong-doing by the Executive?

7. 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?

8. 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?

9. 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)?

10. Were the Local Government Ombudsman's recommendations 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).

11. 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).

12. 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.

13. Provide details of any pay increase (including increments) made to the
Council's Chief Executive (Head of Paid Service) in pounds sterling for
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 . Please additionally identify if the
Chief Executives wages included performance related payments.

14. 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.

15. 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.

Our response for questions 1 and 11 is:
This information is not held.

Our response for questions 14 and 15 is:
These questions are not applicable.

Our response for questions 2 to 10, 12, and 13:
In order for us to provide you with this information, we estimate that it
would require a minimum of 20 hours of staff time. We therefore apply
Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 200 to this aspect of your
request.

Section 12, `Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit'
states:
(1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a
request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of
complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.
(2) Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its
obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the
estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the
appropriate limit.
(3) In subsections (1) and (2) "the appropriate limit" means such amount
as may be prescribed, and different amounts may be prescribed in relation
to different cases.
(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that, in such
circumstances as may be prescribed, where two or more requests for
information are made to a public authority--
(a) by one person, or
(b) by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting
in concert or in pursuance of a campaign,
the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to
be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them.
(5) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for
the purposes of this section as to the costs to be estimated and as to
the
manner in which they are to be estimated.

This acts as a refusal notice. We confirm that the information is held.
The cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the
'appropriate level' as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and
Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004
([1]http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/uksi_20...). This limit is
set at £450. Costs for staff time i.e. staff retrieving and collating
information are set at £25 per hour. To provide further detailed
information would cost approximately £500 (20 hours of staff time x £25
per hour). This estimation of cost is primarily due to the time it would
take to compile complaints data across the Council as it is currently held
by individual directorates. You are able to make a payment so that this
task could be undertaken. You may also modify your request to reduce the
cost of this task. Please contact us if you wish to proceed with one of
these options.

You have a right of appeal against this decision. If you wish to appeal
you must do so in writing to the Corporate Information Manager at the
following address:
Information Governance Team
Room 203, 2^nd Floor
London Borough of Lewisham
Town Hall, Catford Road
London, SE6 4RU
or
[email address]

We hope you will find this information helpful.

Yours sincerely
Information Governance

----

Wed 17/12/2008 22:15
Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS [[FOI #2108 email]]

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 Lewisham Borough
Council's handling of my FOI request 'function council'.

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

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

----

Sat 23/08/2008 18:59
Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS [[FOI #2108 email]]

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

DISCLAIMER

This message is confidential and intended solely for the use of the
individual or entity it is addressed to. If you have received it in
error, please contact the sender and delete the e-mail. To see the full
version of this disclaimer please visit the following address:
http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/AboutThisSite...

For advice and assistance about online security and protection from
internet threats visit the "Get Safe Online" website at
http://www.getsafeonline.org

References

Visible links
1. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/uksi_20...
2. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fu...