Liverpool Direct contract investigations and reports

Dear Sir or Madam,

At the Corporate Services Select Committee meeting of 30 September
2009, a document titled "Liverpool Direct Limited: Review" appeared
under Agenda Item 4:

http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgCo...

On page 10 of this document, it states:

"3.6 In February 2008 the CPA report relating to Liverpool City
Council was followed by a Finance Peer Review (FPR) by the
IDeA(April 2008) of financial management. Both reports indicated
issues that needed to be reviewed in relation to the operation of
Liverpool Direct Limited."

Also, on 2 October 2009, the Liverpool Echo published the following
article:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool...

"It also emerged the city council has spent more than £223,000 with
consultants investigating the Liverpool Direct Limited (LDL)
contract for more than a year."

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please may I have:

* a list of all investigations procured by Liverpool City Council
into the operation of Liverpool Direct business and contracts,
including the names of the consultants involved, budget, and
relevant dates. (This would include any investigations undertaken
prior to the signing of this unique contract.)

* copies of all reports relating to the past and future operation
of Liverpool Direct available to the Council for reference.

Yours faithfully,

Julian Todd

Dear Liverpool City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Liverpool City
Council's handling of my FOI request for copies of all
investigations procured by the Council into the operation of
Liverpool Direct business, which I made on 5 October 2009.

The rejection was made on the basis it would take too long to
search the 175 reports held by Internal Audit and dated back to the
period from April 2006 for the purpose of selecting those which my
request applied.

However, my FOI request letter opened with a specific reference to
at least one such report identified in the agenda of a recent
council meeting.

The failure to send me a copy of this particular report (with
perhaps an apology that there may be more reports which cannot be
found), almost certainly breaches Section 16 (Duty to provide
advice and assistance) of the Act.

Please send me a copy of the report I specifically noted in my
letter, and any others which you can find.

Yours faithfully,

Julian Todd