Anniversary of George Floyd's Passing

The request was successful.

Dewayne McKnight

Dear Oxford City Council,

Last year Oxford City Council run a number of counselling sessions to support staff who were feeling traumatised on the anniversary of misunderstood felon, George Floyd’s brutal murder.

Will the council be running similar counselling and support sessions this year to celebrate George’s two years of passing (25 May)?

Yours faithfully,

Dewayne McKnight

freedomofinformation, Oxford City Council

Dear Mr Knight,

Thank you for your email. Please be advised this is being dealt with as a query rather than an FOI. I have passed your query to the relevant team and asked for them to respond.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

Joyce Fagan | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS

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Dewayne McKnight

Dear Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Anniversary of George Floyd's Passing'.

Can you provide clarification as to why you are treating this request as a query rather than an FOI?

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

Yours faithfully,

Dewayne McKnight

freedomofinformation, Oxford City Council

Dear Mr McKnight,

Thank you for your email asking for an Internal Review of the handling of your Freedom of Information Request.

This has been allocated to me by the Head of Law and Governance and I will be looking into it for you.

Please bear with me while I investigate and I will respond to you shortly, and also with the information that you requested in your FOI.

Kind regards

Sal Bartlett | Information Governance Administrator| Law & Governance | SA1.2B | Oxford City Council | St Aldates Chambers | St Aldates | Oxford | OX1 1DS |
For any Data Protection queries please send the email directly to the [email address] mailbox

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freedomofinformation, Oxford City Council

Dear Mr McKnight,

 

 

Further to my acknowledgment of your internal review request last week, I
am now in a position to respond to you having had a thorough look at your
original request and the Freedom of Information Officer's handling of it.

 

My findings are that your request ought to have been handled as a Freedom
of Information request from the very beginning and that I can only
apologise for the mistake on the part of the FOI Officer. It is hard to
say why they thought it might be a query rather than a request for data,
to my eyes it is evident that it is data that the Council will hold.

 

Sadly, I cannot ask the Freedom of Information Officer responsible at the
time, since she is no longer in the employ of the Council, so all I can
really do is apologise for their mistake.

 

The other thing I have been doing of course is getting an answer to your
question, which I am happy to supply below for you.

 

You asked:

 

Last year Oxford City Council run a number of counselling sessions to
support staff who were feeling traumatised on the anniversary of
misunderstood felon, George Floyd’s brutal murder.

 

Will the council be running similar counselling and support sessions this
year to celebrate George’s two years of passing (25 May)?

 

This year counselling will be available through our employee assistance
programme, a service open to all employees and our service provider will
be briefed to expect calls. We will also encourage any employee who feels
vulnerable to raise this with their manager.

 

The support we provided in May 2021 was in response to the shooting and
serious injury of the anti-racism activist, Sasha Johnson, which happened
around the same time as the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death. 
Sasha was a former Oxford resident, active in the local community and
known by Oxford City Council staff working with local communities. 
However, the counselling was available to all staff who may have been
directly affected by either or both events.

 

If you disagree with any part of the response to your request, you are
entitled to ask the Council for an internal review of the decision(s)
made.  You may do this by writing to the Monitoring Officer, by either
email – [1][email address] – or by post to Monitoring Officer, Oxford
City Council, St Aldate’s Chambers, St Aldate’s, Oxford, OX1 1DS.  After
the result of the internal review, if you remain dissatisfied, you may ask
the Information Commissioner to intervene on your behalf.  You may do this
by writing to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

 

Kind regards

 

 

Sal Bartlett | Information Governance Administrator| Law & Governance |
SA1.2B | Oxford City Council | St Aldates Chambers | St Aldates | Oxford |
OX1 1DS |

For any Data Protection queries please send the email directly to the
[email address] mailbox

 

 

 

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Dewayne McKnight

Dear freedomofinformation,

Thank you for providing the requested information. It is reassuring to know that support is still in place for people traumatised by George's slaying and his memory will not be forgotten.

It is heartening to know that Oxford City Council is a progressive employer and has a solid support mechanism in place to support their staff and are not blindly concentrating all their resources on populist agendas such as housing, transport and the environment.

Maybe Oxford City Council should consider replacing the statue of Cecil Rhodes with one of George Floyd?

Yours sincerely,

Dewayne McKnight