functions council

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Reference: ACR/FOI/08208

Further to your e-mail of 24 August 2008, I can confirm that this matter
is receiving attention and that in accordance with the provisions of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000, Tendring District Council will issue a
full response to your request by no later than 22 September 2008.

Yours sincerely

Alison Rowlands
Corporate Information Manager
Legal Services
Tendring District Council

E-mail [email address]
Tel. 01255 686569
Fax 01255 686409
Minicom 01255 422470
Web [1]www.tendringdc.gov.uk

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Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Reference: ACR/FOI/08208

I have now had the opportunity to review your request for information and
where possible, collate the details you are seeking. For your ease of
reference, I shall respond to your questions in order in which they were
raised.

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 elected Members of Tendring District Council (TDC) are not required to
record their time and therefore, the information you require in respect of
2) and 3) is not available for disclosure. However, with regard to 1), I
can confirm that our Members have no involvement in the complaints
process.

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.

There were a total of 60 elected Members during the periods in question.
Our Annual "Statement of Accounts" provides the details of allowances paid
to Members and I have provided the links to our website where this
information can be retrieved below:

[1]http://www.tendringdc.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyre...

(Pages 56 & 57)

[2]http://www.tendringdc.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyre...

(Pages 67 & 68)

[3]http://www.tendringdc.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyre...

(Pages 76 & 77)

With regards to your question re expenses, the total sums are as follows;

2005/06 = £11,310.09

2006/07 = £11,030.54

2007/08 = £20,016.67

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.

The total number of registered complaints for the years under discussion
were as follows;

2005/06 - 65

2006/07 - 84

2007/08 - 49

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.

As stated above, our Members have no involvement in the complaints
process.

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.

2005/06 - £404.12

2006/07 - £91.65

2007/08 - £20,000.00

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)

During the years in question, there were neither any such payments awarded
nor recommendations made by the LGO.

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 Executive's wages included performance related
payments.

The cost of administering the internally designed and supported
Correspondence/Complaint and Freedom of Information databases is unknown
and therefore, we have no details to release in this respect.
Additionally, TDC staff are not required to record the time spent on
dealing with complaints and again, the requested information does not
exist.

Full details of the authority's expenditure for 2005/06, 2006/07 and
2007/08 are set out in the Council's published Annual Statement of
Accounts (links to which were provided earlier on in this e-mail).

The FTE numbers as at March 2006, March 2007 and March 2008 were 498.71,
503.16 and 516.1 respectively.

Tendring District Council have considered your request for the annual pay
increases awarded to the Chief Executive and wish to apply Section 40 of
the Freedom of Information Act (Personal Information). Section 40 (2)
provides that:

"(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also
exempt information if -

(a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall into
subsection (1), and

(b) either the first or second condition below is satisfied.

(3) The first condition is -

(a) in a case where the the information falls within any of the paragraphs
(a) to (d) of the definition of "data" in section 1 (1) of the Data
Protection Act 1998, that the disclosure if the information to a member of
the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene -

(i) any of the data protection principles

(ii) section 10 of that Act (right to prevent processing
likely to cause damage or distress) and,

(b) in any other case, that the disclosure of the information to a member
of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene any of the
data protection principles if the exemptions in section 33A(1) of the Data
Protection Act 1998 (which relate to manual data held by public
authorities) were disregarded".

Tendring District Council considers that the information you are seeking
is exempt information, as to disclose it would breach the first data
protection principle (this being that personal information is fairly and
lawfully processed).

However, if I may refer you once again to the weblinks above, the Employee
Renumeration section of our Statement of Accounts lists the salary bands
of those officers whose remuneration, excluding pension contributions, was
£50,000 or more, in bands of £10,000. Additionally, I can advise that
TDC does not a operate a PRP scheme and confirm the following percentage
pay increases awarded to all staff in the Authority;

2005/06 - 2.95%

2006/07 - 2.95%

2007/08 - 2.457%

In closing, I hope you will find my reply useful and feel that your
request has been handled satisfactorily however, should you believe that
the Council have failed to deal with your enquiry correctly, you can elect
to have the matter reviewed in accordance with TDC's complaints procedure.
Details of this procedure may be obtained from our website at the address
below.

[4]http://www.tendringdc.gov.uk/TendringDC/...

If you do decide to take this course of action and remain dissatisfied
with the outcome of such a review, you are at liberty to contact the
Information Commissioner ([5]www.ico.gov.uk) with the details of your
grievance and request an independent assessment of the situation.

Yours sincerely

Alison Rowlands
Corporate Information Manager
Legal Services
Tendring District Council

E-mail [email address]
Tel. 01255 686569
Fax 01255 686409
Minicom 01255 422470
Web [6]www.tendringdc.gov.uk

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