Tenant suicide due to safeguarding failures

The request was partially successful.

Peoples Information Center

Dear Homes for Haringey,

This request relates to the suicide of a council tenant in January 2016, as referred to at page 17 of HfH's latest accounts filed at companies house.

Please provide the following:

1. A summary of the failures which led to or were suspected to have contributed to the suicide. Did the tenant have any disabilities? Were they being cared for by the council?
2. Any email correspondence relating to the suicide after the tenant's death - if this would exceed cost limit then please provide correspondence with coroner/coroner's office.
3. Copies of the internal review and the safeguarding review.
4. Copy of the coroner's recommendations.
5. Copy of the coroner's inquest.
6. Copy of any correspondence between the tenant and HfH or the Council in the last month before death.

Yours faithfully,

Antony Steig
Peoples Information Center

ComplaintsHFH, Homes for Haringey

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Steig,

 

Freedom of Information Request: Reference LBH/7089518

 

I acknowledge your request for information received on 12 February 2018.

 

This information request will be dealt with in accordance with the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 and we will send the response by 12 March 2018.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Ajda Ovat I Feedback Officer

 

Homes for Haringey

Broadwater Farm Community Centre I London I N17 6HE

Tel: 0208 489 5611 (option 8)

E: [1][email address]

E: [2][email address]

[3]Save time graphic

 

 

 

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South Jasper, Homes for Haringey

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Steig,

 

Freedom of Information Request, our reference:  LBH/7089518

 

Thank you for your request for information dated 12 February 2018 in which
you asked for details:

 

(This request relates to the suicide of a council tenant in January 2016,
as referred to at page 17 of HfH's latest accounts filed at Companies
House.)

1. A summary of the failures which led to or were suspected to have
contributed to the suicide. Did the tenant have any disabilities? Were
they being cared for by the council?

2. Any email correspondence relating to the suicide after the tenant's
death - if this would exceed cost limit then please provide correspondence
with coroner/coroner's office.

3. Copies of the internal review and the safeguarding review.

4. Copy of the coroner's recommendations.

5. Copy of the coroner's inquest.

6. Copy of any correspondence between the tenant and HfH or the Council in
the last month before death.

 

We have considered your request and our response is as follows.

 

1.       This information is included in the Safeguarding Adults Review
which has been published and is available at
[1]http://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringe...
. We consider this information is exempt from the Freedom of Information
Act under Section 21 of that Act as it is already reasonably accessible.

 

2.       I can confirm that we hold the information that you have
requested.  However, from our initial consideration of your request, we
have estimated that it will cost more than the ‘appropriate limit’ to
consider your request.

 

Section 12 of the Act allows public authorities to refuse requests for
information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the
appropriate limit, which for local government is set at £450. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in
determining whether the department holds the information, locating,
retrieving and extracting the information.

 

In this instance we have estimated that it will cost £8,612 to provide you
with the required information. This amount is therefore over the
appropriate limit as specified in the regulations and consequently we are
not obliged by the Freedom of Information Act to respond to your request. 
We will not therefore be processing your request further. 

 

 The fee has been calculated as follows:

It is estimated that more than 25 members of staff may potentially have
sent or received emails that fit this definition. It would be necessary to
compile a list of staff that may potentially have relevant emails; to
collate their email accounts and archives (for those who have since left
the organisation); and to review the entire contents of their received and
sent messages from January 2016. This would require a manual check of
every email to ascertain whether it was relevant. At a conservative
estimate this could require checking 375,000 items. At a rate of 20 per
minute this would require 312 hours work.

 

 Task Estimated Hours
number of multiplied
Hours by £25
Determining  8  200
whether the
information
is held
Locating  8  200
the
information
Retrieving  312 7812
the
information
Extracting  16  400
the
information
from other
documents
Total  344  8612

 

It may be possible to amend your request so that it does not incur a
charge.   For example, requesting e-mails sent between specific dates
concerning a specific aspect of the case. Please note however that any
amended request received would be considered a new request and new
timescale would apply.

 

Section 32 (2) and 32 (4)  

This applies to records created by the individual or body conducting an
inquiry, and also relating to inquests.  This is an absolute exemption
where there is no public interest test.

 

Section 40 (2)

There will also be personal data within these records relating to the
wider family; this would be exempt under Section 40 (2) as the
correspondence is likely in part to contain data about clearly
identifiable individuals, the wider family of the deceased.   This is an
absolute exemption where there is no public interest test.

 

Section 41

The exemption applies to information provided in confidence, which exempts
information which is obtained by the public authority from any other
person (including another public authority), and the disclosure of the
information to the public (otherwise than under this Act) by the public
authority holding it would constitute a breach of confidence actionable by
that or any other person.   This is an absolute exemption where there is
no public interest test.

 

Section 42 – Legal Professional Privilege

Some of the correspondence would contain legally privileged information,
that is legal advice given by our Insurers to the Coroner’s office.  We
believe that this information is exempt from the Freedom of Information
Act under Section 42.  When relying on this exemption, we must consider
the public interest.

It is acknowledged that the concept of legal professional privilege is
itself founded on the strong public interest in maintaining privacy
between lawyers and their clients. As a result in cases involving legal
professional privilege, the public interest in favour of disclosure must
outweigh the acknowledged public interest in safeguarding openness in
communications between lawyers and their clients and the protection of
full and frank legal advice. We do not think that the public interest in
favour of the disclosure of the requested legal advice is sufficiently
strong in this case.

 

3.       The SAR report is published, as set out above. This report
contains in full the internal review, recommendations and actions taken.
We consider this information is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act
under Section 21) of that Act as the information is already reasonably
accessible.

4.       The Coroner did not make any recommendations and this information
therefore does not exist.

5.       The inquest is a hearing, it is not a document. We are therefore
unable to provide this as the information does not exist. If it is a
request for a note or transcript of the hearing, this request should be
made to the Coroner’s Office.

6.       Copies are attached of two documents sent by HfH to the occupant
during the time specified. No correspondence was received from the
occupant during this time frame.

 

 If you are unhappy with how we have responded to your request you can ask
us to conduct an Internal Review. If so, please contact the Feedback and
Information Team as below. (Please note you should do this within two
months of receiving this response.)   

 

Feedback and Information Team

5^th Floor, Alexandra House

10 Station Road

London

N22 7TR

E [2][email address]

 

You may also complain to the Information Commissioner’s office, who may be
able to help you.  However they would normally expect the local authority
to have undertaken a complaint investigation or Internal Review of the
request before they will accept the referral. 

 

You can contact the Commissioner at:

 

Information Commissioner

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

E [3][email address]

W [4]www.ico.org.uk

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Jasper South

Head of Tenancy Services

[5]cid:image002.jpg@01CD9C01.FCFC35A0

Homes for Haringey

[6]www.homesforharingey.org

 

::  [7][email address]

P Please consider the environment - do you really need to print this
email?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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