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

Dear Sir,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

I acknowledge your request for information received on 24th August 2008.

Your request is being considered and you will receive the information requested within the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, subject to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third party.

If appropriate, the information may be provided in paper copy, normal font size. If you require alternative formats, e.g. language, audio, large print, etc. then please let me know. I understand you wish the information to be sent to you by e-mail.

For your information, the Act defines a number of exemptions that may prevent release of the information you have requested. There will be an assessment and if any of the exemption categories apply then the information will not be released. You will be informed if this is the case, including your rights of appeal.

If the information you request contains reference to a third party then they may be consulted prior to a decision being taken on whether or not to release the information to you. You will be informed if this is the case.

There may a fee payable for this information. This will be considered and you will be informed if a fee is payable. In this event the fee must be paid before the information is processed and released. The 20 working day time limit for responses is suspended until receipt of the payment.

If you have any queries or concerns then please contact the Information Officer at London Borough of Redbridge, Town Hall, PO Box 2, High Road, Ilford, Essex, telephone 0208 708 2331, e-mail [Redbridge Borough Council request email]

Further information is also available from the:
Information Commissioner at: Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700

www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours faithfully,

Lin Pankhurst
Freedom of Information Coordinator
Strategic Services

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Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers,

I refer to your request for information as detailed in your email of 24th August.

I apologise for the delay in responding to your request. This is because the complaints information in Redbridge is not held centrally and has therefore had to be collected and collated across all our departments; this task is taking longer than we anticipated to complete.

I hope to be able to provide the information to you shortly, once again, my apologies for the delay in responding.

Regards,

FOI Coordinator - Strategic Services
Tel: 020 8708 2331

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Dear FoI (Freedom of Information),

No problem

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers,

I refer to your request for information and I sincerely apologise for the delay in responding to you.

This is because the information in Redbridge has not been held centrally, nor in financial years for all complaints data, and has therefore had to be collected, collated and checked across every department individually; this task took much longer than we anticipated to achieve.

You asked:

Question: 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.

Answer:
1. The elected Members of the London Borough of Redbridge do not resolve complaints relating to officers of the Council made by residents. These direct complaints by customers are handled via the Councils <http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/cms/council_...> Corporate Complaints Procedure. Details of the procedure are available via the Council website ( www.redbridge.gov.uk ). As you will see, the London Borough of Redbridge complaints scheme does not require Member participation in the process, with the exception of Adult Social Services, where they may be required to sit on a panel.

2. The Council keeps records of Members attendance at Committees but does not hold information on the amount of time spent at each committee or on duties performed for the Council at other functions, public meetings. Information about Member's <http://http://moderngov.redbridge.gov.uk...> participation in committee meetings (direct link) is available on our website: www.redbridge.gov.uk

3. The London Borough of Redbridge is not required to know how Members spend their time acting for political parties and it is not recorded. We are therefore unable to provide any information with regard to this question.

Question: 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.

Answer: Details of Allowances paid to individual Members can be found on our website: www.redbridge.gov.uk or here <http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/cms/council_...> (direct link).

There are 63 <http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/cms/council_...> elected representatives on our Authority. This has been the same for all the years in question.

Question: 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.

Answer: The number of complaints submitted in total were as follows:

2005/2006 - 1266
2006/2007 - 1492
2007/2008 - 1336

The number of complaints considered by a panel where a Member participated were:

2005/2006 - 2
2006/2007 - 1
2007/2008 - 1

Question: 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.

Answer: There were no complaints against members of staff considered by elected representatives. Staff dismissals are recorded as ‘misconduct ‘ issues and not classified as complaints brought up for members consideration.

Question: 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) in2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008.

Answer: The following amounts were paid to complainants through the Council's complaints system:

2005/2006 - £ 266.00
2006/2007 - £2,339.00
2007/2008 - £2,891.70

Question: 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)).

Answer:

2005/2006 - £7,500
2006/2007 - £3,300
2007/2008 - £5,854

All recommendations were met in full.

Question: 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)

Answer: All recommendations were met in full and any costs came from within Service area budgets.

Question: 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).

Answer: The financial cost of administering our complaints systems (including FOI and DP) is met from within existing service budgets and is generally not recorded separately. Equally, we have very few staff employed specifically to administer and resolve complaints or FOI requests. In most cases, staff within the individual service areas carry out these functions as part of their normal duties. It has therefore not been possible to identify either the cost or the FTE levels for this area of work for the whole Council. However, where costs have been identified by individual service areas, I have included them in the figures below.

2005/2006 - £62,795.80
2006/2007 - £74,457.13
2007/2008 - £76,058.70

Question: 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.

Answer:

1. Our financial statements can be found on our website: www.redbridge.gov.uk ( Direct <http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/cms/council_...> Link) For your convenience, I have attached pdf copies of the summary statements for each of the years.

2. The total number of staff employed by the London Borough of Redbridge is currently : 9101 (7275.14 FTE)

3. The pay increases (including increments) paid to the Chief Executive were as follows:

2005/2006 - £4072
2006/2007 - £4112
2007/2008 - £3585 (+ £14,366 arrears following review during 2008.)

Question: Please additionally identify if the Chief Executives wages included performance related payments.

Answer: The overall reward package has recently been changed to include the potential to attract performance related payments, although the Chief Executive has not asked for any so far, and none has been paid to him.

I trust the above information is sufficient for your purposes and apologise once again for the delay in providing it for you.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Coordinator (Strategic Services)
020 8708 2331

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