BIG Fund Merseycare transport and Aspire creative enterprises

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

Thank you for your within time response to by request of 13 March 2017 re Creative Enterprises and this has led to further enquiry due to the breach of BIG rules vis a vis charitable enterprises. Mersetcare Transport preceded Aspire and indeed was quoted as a precedent for awarding BIG to charitable and not for profit enterprises.

I would ask you for all your files relating to Merseycare Transport BIG application.

I justify these requests by the shortcomings that I have found in each and every BIG file I have examined. In Aspire creative enterprises there is only a cashflow submitted which tenuously, and with extremely unsophisticated method in the cashflow, and ignoring any vat implications of turnover over the £73,000 and the £77,000 thresholds, claim £15,000 of BIG money to the prejudice of commercial businesses which could not access the charitable grants available to an enterprise such as Aspire

Yours faithfully,

nigel hobro

James Griffiths left an annotation ()

G'day "Highbrow" I can smell another rat, can you?
Why don't they just fess up?
Then we can go away.
Ooroo
James

James Griffiths left an annotation ()

G'day "Highbrow"
I bet they are not early with this little baby.
Ooroo
James

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,
Forget me not for tomorrow Mrs Corrin re Merseycare Transport and BIG

Yours faithfully,

nigel hobro

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Hobro,

 

Thank you for your enquiry, the Council  can confirm your request is
currently being processed by officers and we apologise for a delay in
response to your enquiry.  The Council aims to provide you with a
substantive response by the end of this week or within a further 10
working days, by 24^th  May 2017 and we trust that this is acceptable to
you. 

 

Wirral Council thanks you for your patience in this matter.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Tracy O'Hare

Information Management Officer

Business Services - Digital

Treasury Building

Cleveland Street
Birkenhead
Wirral
CH41 6BL

[1]Tel:0151 691 8397

[2][Wirral Borough Council request email]

 

 

[3]LGC Awards15_Winner_MIP

 

This information supplied to you is copyrighted and 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 our specific permission, may
involve licensing and the application of a charge

 

 

 

 

 

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James Griffiths left an annotation ()

G'day "Highbrow" I told you this would be late "The Shyster's probably counting his election dosh. They will be very busy redacting too. Ooroo James

James Griffiths left an annotation ()

No word today "Highbrow"? They have been vexatious now for almost six years. Ooroo James

James Griffiths left an annotation ()

G'day "Highbrow" They get more vexatious by the day.
Ooroo
James

James Griffiths left an annotation ()

G'day "Highbrow" They shouldn't give it if they can't take it.
Oooroo
James

James Griffiths left an annotation ()

G'day Mate another excuse they have bigger fish to fry.
Ooroo
James
ha ha

Dear InfoMgr, FinDMT,

Merseycare Transport ltd

It is now the 24th May 2017 and still no response
I request an internal review .
Yours sincerely,

nigel hobro

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Hobro,

 

I refer to your email of  7 April  in which you made the following request
for information:-

 

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

 

Thank you for your within time response to my request of 13 March 2017 re
Creative Enterprises and this has led to further enquiry due to the breach
of BIG rules vis a vis charitable enterprises. Merseycare Transport
preceded Aspire and indeed was quoted as a precedent for awarding BIG to
charitable and not for profit enterprises.

 

I would ask you for all your files relating to Merseycare Transport BIG
application.

 

I justify these requests by the shortcomings that I have found in each and
every BIG file I have examined. In Aspire creative enterprises there is
only a cashflow submitted which tenuously, and with extremely
unsophisticated method in the cashflow, and ignoring any vat implications
of turnover over the £73,000 and the £77,000 thresholds, claim £15,000 of
BIG money to the prejudice of commercial businesses which could not access
the charitable grants available to an enterprise such as Aspire

 

 

You requested an internal review on 24 May, as the Council had not
responded to your query.

 

I consider that the information you have requested is exempt information
under section 41 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”). Section
41 provides that information is exempt information if it was obtained by
the public authority from any other person and the disclosure of the
information by the public authority holding it would constitute a breach
of confidence actionable by that or any other person. I have had regard to
the Information Commissioner’s Guidance “Information provided in
confidence (section 41).

 

The Council has obtained the information from another person, ie
 Merseycare Transport Limited, a company limited by guarantee and which
continues to trade. They have been consulted and object to the Council
disclosing the requested information. I consider that the information
requested possesses the necessary quality of confidence. It has been
imparted to the Council in circumstances importing an implied obligation
of confidence. I refer to paragraph 16 of the decision notice dated 4
October 2016, where the ICO stated that “the Commissioner is prepared to
accept that there is a reasonable obligation of confidence and that this
element of the test is met “. The information that you are requesting
exceeds that which was sought in that case, being more than the details of
the grant. The information is more than trivial and not otherwise
accessible. Paragraph 31 of the ICO guidance states that, “ It does not
have to be highly sensitive, but nor hould it be trivial. The preservation
of confidence is recognised by the courts to be an important matter and
one in which there is a strong public interest”.

 

I consider that the disclosure of the requested information would
constitute a breach of confidence, which would be actionable by Merseycare
Transport Limited. It has the necessary legal personality to take action
and I consider that disclosure would cause a detrimental impact on the
company.  I consider that any action for breach of confidence would be
likely to succeed and that there would not be a public interest in
disclosure which would override the competing public interest in
maintaining the duty of confidence. Section 41 is an absolute exemption.

 

I am therefore refusing your request for information on the basis that the
exemption contained in Section 41 of FOIA applies.

 

You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner  in respect
of the refusal  of your request for information under Section 17 of FOIA.
The address is the Information Commissioner’s Office,

Wycliffe House,

Water Lane,

Wilmslow,

Cheshire SK9 5AF

[1]https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

Tel -0303 123 113

 

Yours sincerely

 

Rosemary Lyon,

Solicitor,

Business Services,

Law and Governance

Town Hall,

Brighton Street

Wallasey

Wirral

CH44 8ED

 

 

[2]LGC Awards15_Winner_MIP

 

 

This information supplied to you is copyrighted and 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 our specific permission, may
involve licensing and the application of a charge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

Dear InfoMgr, FinDMT,

The company is a company limited by guarantee. In itself this somewhat limits it's commercialism. A large part of its work does seem to be commissioned by Wbc itself.

It carries children to Elleray Park school per pro the council. Thereby it's commercial interests are circumscribed to interests with the council itself.

I disagree with you for this grant was awarded at least five years ago and on the big rules themselves for it to receive the grant it cannot be in competition with another commercial entity within Wirral. REVEALING THE papers thereby cannot infringe commercial sensitivity.

I hope you can comply within seven days to forestall my appeal to the Information Commissioner. I must add that the ICO had already commented on your liaison with Big recipients commenting re the big fund list that your claims of then consulting with recipients were not proven to the ICO

Yours sincerely,

nigel hobro

Dear InfoMgr, FinDMT,
This is extracted from Merseycare's website
@Merseycare is a local community transport charity helping local people with specialist mobility needs to get around Wirral.
Working with families and organisations we fully believe in making sure all members of the community have access to the many activities and opportunities in Wirral. Whether it is getting to school, work or hospital Merseycare has fleet of specialist vehicles and mini-buses to deliver a friendly, reliable and punctual transport service.

We also organise exciting days out, taking people to the many beautiful places in Wirral and the rest of Merseyside or even anywhere in the Uk if required. So if you are looking to organise a day out for a group of people and need specialist transport talk to us.

Merseycare has been set up with the support of Wirral Borough Council and serving the community is at the heart of what we do. Our non-profit making, charitable' status means we invest all our funding in service improvements and putting our customers first.@

Therefore this is a charity, operating exclusively for wirral residents and thereby clearly it was WBC officers who broke the BIG rules and it is to my opinion that WBC wishes again to conceal the wrong decisions made by its staff.

I should that the accounts September 2008 to 31st March 2010 covering the period when BIG was awarded do not include any mention of the BIG fund fuelling suspicions about the destination of this grant
Yours sincerely,

nigel hobro