Institutional abuse and Evictions of Care Home Residents

Doug Paulley made this Freedom of Information request to Leicestershire County Council

The request was refused by Leicestershire County Council.

From: Doug Paulley

25 June 2010

Dear Leicestershire County Council,

1) Please supply information relating to the incidence of attempts
by care providers to evict residents in care homes - that is, care
providers giving residents notice to leave or otherwise attempting
to get them to leave without their involvement in the decision or
against their wishes.

Please indicate the number of cases you are aware of for the last 3
years, also indicating if and how your council responded to the
situation, and what was the ultimate result of the sitaution, i.e.
if and how the situation was resolved.

2) Please provide me with the number of instances your council is
aware of where either CQC or local authority safeguarding
procedures have substantiated allegations of insitutional abuse of
a Leonard Cheshire social care service user over the past 3 years.

Further, please provide anonymised information on the alleged
behaviour by Leonard Cheshire resulting in the conclusion.

Yours faithfully,

Doug Paulley

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Leicestershire County Council

22 July 2010

Doug Paulley

[FOI #39650 email]

22/07/2010

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

FOI Request Number :2010
Description :Institutional Abuse & Eviction of Care Home Residents

Dear Doug Paulley

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Leicestershire County Council, however your request for information will not be processed.

This is because the cost of locating and retrieving the information greatly exceeds the “appropriate limit” as stated in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. (In order to give this information we would need to search individual case notes of anyone residing in a care home in the last 3 years). It is estimated that it would cost more than £450 to comply with your request.

Where this is the case we would normally contact the requestor directly to try to help them should they wish to refine/modify their request to reduce the cost to within the “appropriate limit”. Unfortunately, this has not been possible in this case because the request has been made via a 3rd party website. If however the requestor would like to do this, please contact me using my contact details as below.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Please contact me if you would like some advice on refining your request.

If you are unhappy with the way Leicestershire County Council has handled your request you may ask for an internal review. You should contact the Business Partner (Information Management) at Leicestershire County Council, County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester, LE3 8TG, telephone 0116 305 8250, e-mail [Leicestershire County Council request email] if you wish to complain quoting the FOI Request Number.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you also have a right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

S Berry
Web Management Officer
Adult Social Care Service
Leicestershire County Council
0116 305 7228
[email address]

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From: Doug Paulley

24 July 2010

Dear Leicestershire County Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Leicestershire County
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Institutional abuse and
Evictions of Care Home Residents'.

I wish to appeal your decision not to prove the information as it
would apparently require manual searching of records which would
thus make it too expensive to provide.

I dispute this on two grounds.

1) The request has been refused on the basis that it would take too
long to extract information from records. I dispute that this would
be necessary.

Where attempts are made to evict residents in care homes against
their will, or Leonard Cheshire service users are judged to have
been institutionally abused, it is an event that is likely to
escalate and to stick
in peoples' minds. Indeed it tends to make the news, for example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6599155.stm

A simple query to the head of adult social services for each area
would therefore likely yield the required results without a manual
search. For the avoidance of doubt, the results of such an informal
information gathering exercise would be more than satisfactory to
me in answering my question.

To assist in narrowing down my request, I am not interested in
cases where homes have closed or changed registration, or where
residents are moved on with their agreement or with support of
family due to increased needs that the home can't meet. I'm much
more interested in "unreasonable" evictions or termination
attempts.

2) I have made the same Freedom of Information Request to every
council in the country. Whilst not all results are yet in, lots of
councils have provided the same information for their area very
promptly and without any apparent difficulty.

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

Yours faithfully,

Doug Paulley

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Leicestershire County Council

26 July 2010

Doug Paulley
[FOI #39650 email]

26/07/2010

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - REQUEST FOR INTERNAL REVIEW

FOI Request Number : 2010
Description : Institutional Abuse & Eviction of Care Home Residents

Dear Mr Paulley

I acknowledge your request for an internal review received on 24/07/2010.

The review has now commenced and you will receive our findings within 20 working days.

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.

If you have any queries or concerns then please contact the Business Partner(Information Management) at Leicestershire County Council, County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester, LE3 8TG, telephone 0116 305 8250, e-mail [Leicestershire County 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

If you wish to contact Leicestershire County Council concerning this request please use the request number above as a reference.

Yours sincerely

Morag Wilkes (Mrs)
Information Management Assistant
011630 57131

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Leicestershire County Council

2 August 2010

Doug Paulley

[FOI #39650 email]

02/08/2010

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INTERNAL REVIEW

FOI Request Number :2010
Description :Institutional Abuse & Eviction of Care Home Residents

Dear Mr Paulley

We have considered your request for a review against the Refusal Notice in relation to provision of information in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and we are satisfied that this FOI request has been responded to in the correct manner.

With regard to the points raised:

1) We can confirm that, to give a complete answer to this request, individual case notes would have to be searched (2,289 records as at 31st March 2010). This would result in the request costing more than £450 (18 hours) to process therefore this information is exempt from disclosure.

This method of providing the information is necessary to give an accurate answer. We agree with the department; ‘informal’ provision of information which could possibly be incomplete is not acceptable. For example, changes in staff would potentially reduce the awareness of such issues.

The department concerned published our standard refusal letter but suggested the requestor contact them to discuss refinement/modification of the request to allow an answer to be provided. Direct contact details for the department are included in that letter. This is in accordance with our standard procedure.

2) As above, we would not be happy with the provision of incomplete information. The department have reiterated that they would be happy for the requestor to contact them.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have a right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Morag I Wilkes (Mrs)
Information Management Assistant
Room 132
County Hall
Glenfield
Leicester
LE3 8TG

01163057131

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Doug Paulley left an annotation ( 2 August 2010)

Have appealed to the ICO

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Doug Paulley left an annotation (21 December 2010)

on being informed by the ICO that they are minded to agree with the council's refusal based on the cost of providing this information I have given up on this and withdrawn my complaint to the ICO.

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Things to do with this request

Anyone:
Leicestershire County Council only: