function council

Thank you for contacting Lancaster City Council.

Your email will be forwarded to the appropriate team, who aim to respond
within 5 working days.

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers,

I acknowledge the receipt of your request for information which I received
on 26th August 2008.

I will write to you again within the 20 working days prescribed by the
Freedom of Information Act (2000).

Yours sincerely

Caroline S Thompson
Information Management Officer
Information & Customer Services

Lancaster City Council
Tel: 01524 582192
E Mail:[1][email address]

UK businesses use up 2 million tonnes of paper each year. Think before you
print this email - do you really need to? Thank you.

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

I refer to your request of 23rd August and provide the following replies
to each question in turn.

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.

You have listed above the 3 activities which you suggest will make up 100%
of a Councillor's time spent on their duties as a Councillor. This does
not however give a full picture.

1. Council staff are employees rather than the executive and any
complaints against them are for the most part dealt with as part of the
Council's disciplinary procedure, with only a very few resulting in a
final Appeal to Councillors - just one in each of the years referred to.
The Appeals Committee comprises just 7 members out of a total of 60 -
their activity in this respect is therefore negligible as a percentage of
their total time.

2. Time spent sitting on Committees varies from one Councillor to
another - all 60 meet as full Council. This usually meets 10 times per
year and each meeting lasts between 2 and 4 hours, occasionally longer.
Councillors are then members of other Committees by choice, some attending
more than others - attendance details for each individual member can be
found on the Council's website
at [1]http://committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk/m... You will
see from this that there is a wide variation of time commitment.

3. Time spent acting for their political party is not recorded as this
is not deemed to be 'council business'. Councillors take part in very few
ceremonial duties, with the exception of the Mayor elected each year. A
ceremonial annual council is held each year to instal the new Mayor and
Councillors are invited to other civic events such as Mayoral Sunday,
Remembrance Day Service, etc - it is up to the individual whether they
attend or not.

You have not however included any reference to the hours spent by
Councillors carrying out their ward duties, dealing with constituent
enquiries and other facets of being a Councillor. Some time ago research
was undertaken into the time commitment of a Councillor in order to
provide evidence in calculating a reasonable level of basic allowance to
be paid to all Councillors. This was produced for the Independent
Remuneration Panel which makes recommendations to Council on the level of
allowances to be paid. Attached is a document considered by the IRP when
undertaking the most recent full review of the Members' Allowances Scheme
- the principles which underpin the Scheme are contained in Section 2 of
the report and Section 4.1 gives details of the percentage of time
councillors spend on various parts of their role. I have also included an
anonimised summary of log sheets completed by councillors at the time to
inform the calculations undertaken.

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.

As is the case for all Councils, Lancaster City Council has a Members
Allowances Scheme which sets out the entitlement of every Councillor -
this is a public document available at
[2]http://committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk/e...
It is also a statutory requirement for the Council to publish all payments
- allowances and expenses - made to every Councillor as soon as possible
after the end of the financial year. The Notice is published usually in
July in 2 local newspapers and is placed on the Council's website. I have
attached the current notice relating to 2007/08 and those for 2006/07 and
2005/06. Lancaster City Council comprises 60 elected Members.

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.

Lancaster City Council did not have a centralised system in place for
counting all complaints for the years requested, hence I am unable to
provide this information. We are currently in the process of extending the
use of our customer relationship management system to ensure that all
complaints received are recorded centrally.

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 have interpreted this question as relating to employment appeals.
Lancaster City Council dealt with the following appeals: 2005/06 - 1,
2006/07 - 1 2007/08 - 1 all of which resulted in the the staff member
ceasing to be employed by this council. One appeal dealt with
in 2005/06 resulted in the staff member being re instated.

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 following amounts were paid to complainants: 2005/06 - £39, 2006/07 -
nil and 2007/08 - £136.

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)

Lancaster City Council made no payments in 2005/06. Payments were made to
two complainants during 2006/07 totalling £781.55. In 2007/08 the council
made payments totalling £54,982.32 to three complainants. All Local
Government Ombudsman recommendations have been met in full. I am advised
that these costs were not met by the Council's insurers.

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.

As I explained earlier we did not have a centralised system for dealing
with all complaints hence I am unable to provide you with the cost of
administering complaints during the time period requested. There is no
full time equivalent member of staff responsible for dealing with all
complaints as at present they are dealt with at service level.

I am afraid that I am unable to provide a figure for total administration
costs. Our published accounts show the total expenditure for each service,
some of which will be administration. As previously mentioned our accounts
are published on our website at [3]www.lancaster.gov.uk

Lancaster City Council employed 951 staff in 2005/06, 971 in 2006/07 and
991 in 2007/08.

The chief executive received a pay increase of 2.95% in 2005/06, 2.95% in
2006/07 and 2.475% in 2007/08. The chief executive does not receive
performance related pay.

I trust this information satisfies your request.

If you are not happy with this response please contact me in the first
instance. If you are still not satisfied you have the right to ask for an
internal review of the decision. This will be dealt with by the Head of
Legal and Human Resources. If your appeal is not resolved you would then
have the further right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for an
independent review.

Yours sincerely

Caroline S Thompson
Information Management Officer
Information & Customer Services

Lancaster City Council
Tel: 01524 582192
E Mail:[4][email address]

UK businesses use up 2 million tonnes of paper each year. Think before you
print this email - do you really need to? Thank you.

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

I refer to your request of 23rd August and provide the following replies
to each question in turn.

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.

You have listed above the 3 activities which you suggest will make up 100%
of a Councillor's time spent on their duties as a Councillor. This does
not however give a full picture.

1. Council staff are employees rather than the executive and any
complaints against them are for the most part dealt with as part of the
Council's disciplinary procedure, with only a very few resulting in a
final Appeal to Councillors - just one in each of the years referred to.
The Appeals Committee comprises just 7 members out of a total of 60 -
their activity in this respect is therefore negligible as a percentage of
their total time.

2. Time spent sitting on Committees varies from one Councillor to
another - all 60 meet as full Council. This usually meets 10 times per
year and each meeting lasts between 2 and 4 hours, occasionally longer.
Councillors are then members of other Committees by choice, some attending
more than others - attendance details for each individual member can be
found on the Council's website
at [1]http://committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk/m... You will
see from this that there is a wide variation of time commitment.

3. Time spent acting for their political party is not recorded as this
is not deemed to be 'council business'. Councillors take part in very few
ceremonial duties, with the exception of the Mayor elected each year. A
ceremonial annual council is held each year to instal the new Mayor and
Councillors are invited to other civic events such as Mayoral Sunday,
Remembrance Day Service, etc - it is up to the individual whether they
attend or not.

You have not however included any reference to the hours spent by
Councillors carrying out their ward duties, dealing with constituent
enquiries and other facets of being a Councillor. Some time ago research
was undertaken into the time commitment of a Councillor in order to
provide evidence in calculating a reasonable level of basic allowance to
be paid to all Councillors. This was produced for the Independent
Remuneration Panel which makes recommendations to Council on the level of
allowances to be paid. Attached is a document considered by the IRP when
undertaking the most recent full review of the Members' Allowances Scheme
- the principles which underpin the Scheme are contained in Section 2 of
the report and Section 4.1 gives details of the percentage of time
councillors spend on various parts of their role. I have also included an
anonimised summary of log sheets completed by councillors at the time to
inform the calculations undertaken.

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.

As is the case for all Councils, Lancaster City Council has a Members
Allowances Scheme which sets out the entitlement of every Councillor -
this is a public document available at
[2]http://committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk/e...
It is also a statutory requirement for the Council to publish all payments
- allowances and expenses - made to every Councillor as soon as possible
after the end of the financial year. The Notice is published usually in
July in 2 local newspapers and is placed on the Council's website. I have
attached the current notice relating to 2007/08 and those for 2006/07 and
2005/06. Lancaster City Council comprises 60 elected Members.

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.

Lancaster City Council did not have a centralised system in place for
counting all complaints for the years requested, hence I am unable to
provide this information. We are currently in the process of extending the
use of our customer relationship management system to ensure that all
complaints received are recorded centrally.

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 have interpreted this question as relating to employment appeals.
Lancaster City Council dealt with the following appeals: 2005/06 - 1,
2006/07 - 1 2007/08 - 1 all of which resulted in the the staff member
ceasing to be employed by this council. One appeal dealt with
in 2005/06 resulted in the staff member being re instated.

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 following amounts were paid to complainants: 2005/06 - £39, 2006/07 -
nil and 2007/08 - £136.

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)

Lancaster City Council made no payments in 2005/06. Payments were made to
two complainants during 2006/07 totalling £781.55. In 2007/08 the council
made payments totalling £54,982.32 to three complainants. All Local
Government Ombudsman recommendations have been met in full. I am advised
that these costs were not met by the Council's insurers.

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.

As I explained earlier we did not have a centralised system for dealing
with all complaints hence I am unable to provide you with the cost of
administering complaints during the time period requested. There is no
full time equivalent member of staff responsible for dealing with all
complaints as at present they are dealt with at service level.

I am afraid that I am unable to provide a figure for total administration
costs. Our published accounts show the total expenditure for each service,
some of which will be administration. As previously mentioned our accounts
are published on our website at [3]www.lancaster.gov.uk

Lancaster City Council employed 951 staff in 2005/06, 971 in 2006/07 and
991 in 2007/08.

The chief executive received a pay increase of 2.95% in 2005/06, 2.95% in
2006/07 and 2.475% in 2007/08. The chief executive does not receive
performance related pay.

I trust this information satisfies your request.

If you are not happy with this response please contact me in the first
instance. If you are still not satisfied you have the right to ask for an
internal review of the decision. This will be dealt with by the Head of
Legal and Human Resources. If your appeal is not resolved you would then
have the further right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for an
independent review.

Yours sincerely

Caroline S Thompson
Information Management Officer
Information & Customer Services

Lancaster City Council
Tel: 01524 582192
E Mail:[4][email address]

UK businesses use up 2 million tonnes of paper each year. Think before you
print this email - do you really need to? Thank you.

show quoted sections

Thompson, Caroline would like to recall the message, "Freedom of
Information Request".

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

I refer to your request of 23rd August and provide the following replies
to each question in turn.

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.

You have listed above the 3 activities which you suggest will make up 100%
of a Councillor's time spent on their duties as a Councillor. This does
not however give a full picture.

1. Council staff are employees rather than the executive and any
complaints against them are for the most part dealt with as part of the
Council's disciplinary procedure, with only a very few resulting in a
final Appeal to Councillors - just one in each of the years referred to.
The Appeals Committee comprises just 7 members out of a total of 60 -
their activity in this respect is therefore negligible as a percentage of
their total time.

2. Time spent sitting on Committees varies from one Councillor to
another - all 60 meet as full Council. This usually meets 10 times per
year and each meeting lasts between 2 and 4 hours, occasionally longer.
Councillors are then members of other Committees by choice, some attending
more than others - attendance details for each individual member can be
found on the Council's website
at [1]http://committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk/m... You will
see from this that there is a wide variation of time commitment.

3. Time spent acting for their political party is not recorded as this
is not deemed to be 'council business'. Councillors take part in very few
ceremonial duties, with the exception of the Mayor elected each year. A
ceremonial annual council is held each year to instal the new Mayor and
Councillors are invited to other civic events such as Mayoral Sunday,
Remembrance Day Service, etc - it is up to the individual whether they
attend or not.

You have not however included any reference to the hours spent by
Councillors carrying out their ward duties, dealing with constituent
enquiries and other facets of being a Councillor. Some time ago research
was undertaken into the time commitment of a Councillor in order to
provide evidence in calculating a reasonable level of basic allowance to
be paid to all Councillors. This was produced for the Independent
Remuneration Panel which makes recommendations to Council on the level of
allowances to be paid. Attached is a document considered by the IRP when
undertaking the most recent full review of the Members' Allowances Scheme
- the principles which underpin the Scheme are contained in Section 2 of
the report and Section 4.1 gives details of the percentage of time
councillors spend on various parts of their role. I have also included an
anonimised summary of log sheets completed by councillors at the time to
inform the calculations undertaken.

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.

As is the case for all Councils, Lancaster City Council has a Members
Allowances Scheme which sets out the entitlement of every Councillor -
this is a public document available at
[2]http://committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk/e...
It is also a statutory requirement for the Council to publish all payments
- allowances and expenses - made to every Councillor as soon as possible
after the end of the financial year. The Notice is published usually in
July in 2 local newspapers and is placed on the Council's website. I have
attached the current notice relating to 2007/08 and those for 2006/07 and
2005/06. Lancaster City Council comprises 60 elected Members.

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.

Lancaster City Council did not have a centralised system in place for
counting all complaints for the years requested, hence I am unable to
provide this information. We are currently in the process of extending the
use of our customer relationship management system to ensure that all
complaints received are recorded centrally.

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 have interpreted this question as relating to employment appeals.
Lancaster City Council dealt with the following appeals: 2005/06 - 1,
2006/07 - 1 2007/08 - 1 all of which resulted in the the staff member
ceasing to be employed by this council. One appeal dealt with
in 2005/06 resulted in the staff member being re instated.

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 following amounts were paid to complainants: 2005/06 - £39, 2006/07 -
nil and 2007/08 - £136.

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)

Lancaster City Council made no payments in 2005/06. Payments were made to
two complainants during 2006/07 totalling £781.55. In 2007/08 the council
made payments totalling £54,982.32 to three complainants. All Local
Government Ombudsman recommendations have been met in full. I am advised
that these costs were not met by the Council's insurers.

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.

As I explained earlier we did not have a centralised system for dealing
with all complaints hence I am unable to provide you with the cost of
administering complaints during the time period requested. There is no
full time equivalent member of staff responsible for dealing with all
complaints as at present they are dealt with at service level.

I am afraid that I am unable to provide a figure for total administration
costs. Our published accounts show the total expenditure for each service,
some of which will be administration. As previously mentioned our accounts
are published on our website at [3]www.lancaster.gov.uk

Lancaster City Council employed 951 staff in 2005/06, 971 in 2006/07 and
991 in 2007/08.

The chief executive received a pay increase of 2.95% in 2005/06, 2.95% in
2006/07 and 2.475% in 2007/08. The chief executive does not receive
performance related pay.

I trust this information satisfies your request.

If you are not happy with this response please contact me in the first
instance. If you are still not satisfied you have the right to ask for an
internal review of the decision. This will be dealt with by the Head of
Legal and Human Resources. If your appeal is not resolved you would then
have the further right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for an
independent review.

Yours sincerely

Caroline S Thompson
Information Management Officer
Information & Customer Services

Lancaster City Council
Tel: 01524 582192
E Mail:[4][email address]

UK businesses use up 2 million tonnes of paper each year. Think before you
print this email - do you really need to? Thank you.

show quoted sections