Dear Sir or Madam,

Over the last five years

(1) How many Local Government Act Part III Section 32(3) notices
has your council served on a Local Government Ombudsman.

(3) How many times has the Ombudsman concerned found the council
guilty of maladministration for misusing a Section 32(3) notice.

Yours faithfully,

Trevor R Nunn

Dear Trevor,

Thank you for your request for information relating to LGA Part 3 Section.
Your request was received on
12th October 2009 and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 and/or the Environmental Information Regulations
2004.

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, I will
let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you, and you will be
required to pay before we will proceed to deal with your request.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact Sue Smith or
Stephen Hughes on telephone number 01254 585761. Alternatively, our email
address is [1][Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council request email]

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

Regards
Fozia Khan

Audit & Assurance Administrator | Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council

Audit & Assurance
Tower Block, F Floor| King William Street | Blackburn | BB1 7DY

@: [2][email address]| (: 01254 585649

.

This email and any attached Documents are confidential, and may be subject to
legal privilege, and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity
to whom they are addressed.

The Council own the Copyright of this e-mail and any attached document(s) which
it has created. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail or any part
of it please delete it immediately. You should not use or disclose to any person
the contents of this e-mail or any attachments nor take copies.

The Council have taken every reasonable precaution to ensure that any
attachment has been swept for viruses, but we cannot accept any liability for
any loss or damage sustained as a result of software viruses and would advise
that you carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment. Please
note that e-mails may be falsified: in circumstances where the content is
important, then you should not rely on its integrity without checking with the
Council.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council request email]
2. mailto:[email address]

Dear Mr Nunn,

I am writing regarding your request for information, which I received on
13^th October 2009. In that request, you asked us for information relating
to Local Government Act Part III Section 32(3) notices.

Question 1. How many Local Government Act Part III Section 32(3) notices
has your council served on a Local Government Ombudsman?

Answer. I can confirm that the Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council holds
information falling within the description specified in your request.
However, we estimate that the cost of complying with your request would
exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The appropriate limit has been
specified in regulations and for Local Government it is set at £450. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2½ working days in
determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating,
retrieving and extracting the information. Under section 12 of the Freedom
of Information Act the Department is not obliged to comply with your
request and we will not be processing your request further.

If you were to make a new request for a narrower category of information,
it may be that we could comply with that request within the appropriate
limit, although I cannot guarantee that this will be the case.

Question 2. How many times has the Ombudsman concerned found the council
guilty of maladministration for misusing a Section 32(3) notice?

Answer. None.

 

Should you require further information please contact me. The information
supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including
any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news
reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial publication, would
require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied
by the Council will have been produced by government officials and will be
Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using
Crown Copyright on HMSOnline at:

[1]http://www.hmso.gov.uk/copyright/licence...

Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues
to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from
which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their
permission before reproducing any third party (non Crown Copyright)
information. If you are unhappy with the service you have received in
relation to your request and wish to make a complaint or request a review
of our decision, you should write to:

David Mallaby, Strategic Director, Neighbourhoods Housing & Customer
Services department, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, 4th Floor,
Town Hall, Blackburn, Lancashire, BB1 7DY

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the
ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints
procedure provided by the Council. The Information Commissioner can be
contacted at:  The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

 

Yours sincerely,

Stuart McAuley
Contract Support Officer
Regeneration & Environment
Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council
Room 418, 4th Floor
Town Hall
Blackburn BB1 7DY
[2][email address]
01254 585698

This email and any attached Documents are confidential, and may be subject to
legal privilege, and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity
to whom they are addressed.

The Council own the Copyright of this e-mail and any attached document(s) which
it has created. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail or any part
of it please delete it immediately. You should not use or disclose to any person
the contents of this e-mail or any attachments nor take copies.

The Council have taken every reasonable precaution to ensure that any
attachment has been swept for viruses, but we cannot accept any liability for
any loss or damage sustained as a result of software viruses and would advise
that you carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment. Please
note that e-mails may be falsified: in circumstances where the content is
important, then you should not rely on its integrity without checking with the
Council.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.hmso.gov.uk/copyright/licence...
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/copyright/licence...
2. mailto:[email address]

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 Blackburn with Darwen
Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'LG Act 1974 Part III
Section 32(3) notices'.

The suggestion that it would take two and a half days to ask the
council legal department how many notices they have served on the
LGO is nonsense. Said notice is a statutory document and as such
could only have been issued by your legal department. There is no
need to look anywhere else to artificially ramp up the costs of
complying with my FOI request as an excuse for refusing the
information.

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

Yours faithfully,

Trevor R Nunn

Dear Mr Nunn,

In response to your recent request for a review of our original decision,
our review has found that :

* We used

LG Act 1974 Part 111 Section 32 (3) notices

6 times in the last 5 years.
* On non of those occasions were claims of maladministration brought
against us.
* We were incorrect to use section 12 of the FOI Act , on revisiting the
request we found that we were able to deliver the answer within 18
hours / £450 cost.
* We have used this opportunity to revise how we audit the quality of
our responses.

I hope this answers your query. If you need any further explanation please
use the details below to contact us again and thank you for bringing this
issue to our attention.

Many thanks,

Sue Smith

Audit and Assurance

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council

Town Hall, Blackburn, Lancashire BB1 7DY

[1]mailto:[email address]

Tel : 01254 585761

fax 01254 585417

This email and any attached Documents are confidential, and may be subject to
legal privilege, and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity
to whom they are addressed.

The Council own the Copyright of this e-mail and any attached document(s) which
it has created. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail or any part
of it please delete it immediately. You should not use or disclose to any person
the contents of this e-mail or any attachments nor take copies.

The Council have taken every reasonable precaution to ensure that any
attachment has been swept for viruses, but we cannot accept any liability for
any loss or damage sustained as a result of software viruses and would advise
that you carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment. Please
note that e-mails may be falsified: in circumstances where the content is
important, then you should not rely on its integrity without checking with the
Council.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]