Bullying in Cheshire West and Chester Council

The request was successful.

Dear Cheshire West and Chester Council,

1) How many employees of Cheshire West and Chester Council have made an
official complaint of harassment and bullying at work since the council's inception?

2) How many of these complaints were upheld in favour of the
complainant?

3) How many of those which were not upheld in favour of the
complainant went on to Appeal?

4) How many of those that went to Appeal were found to favour the
complainant?

5) How many complaints went on to an Employment Tribunal?

6) How many of these were found to uphold the complaint?

Yours faithfully,

Yabootoyou

Cheshire West and Chester Council

RE: Your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Case Reference: 101003305205

Dear Sir / Madam

Thank you for your email.

It will be treated as a request within the meaning of the Act: this means that we will send you a full response within 20 working days, either supplying you with the information which you want, or explaining to you why we cannot supply it.

If we need any further clarification or there is any problem we will be in touch.

In the meantime if you wish to discuss this further please contact FOIWEST. It would be helpful if you could quote the log number.

Yours sincerely

Ruth Winson
Solutions Team

Cheshire West and Chester Council

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FOI West, Cheshire West and Chester Council

Dear Yabootoyou

Thank you for your request for information which has been logged as
reference

3305205.

 

Your request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) 2000.

 

For the purposes of clarity we now reproduce your request and append our
response beneath:

1)    How many employees of Cheshire West and Chester Council have made
an  official complaint of harassment and bullying at work since the
council's inception? (APRIL 2009) 

Response - 10

2)    How many of these complaints were upheld in favour of the 
complainant? 

Response -1

3)    How many of those which were not upheld in favour of the 
complainant went on to Appeal?

Response -1

4)    How many of those that went to Appeal were found to favour the 
complainant?

Response - None

5)    How many complaints went on to an Employment Tribunal?

Response - None

6)    How many of these were found to uphold the complaint?

Response - None

 

The Council considers that your request has been answered in full by
either confirming that information is not held, providing you with the
information requested, or explaining why any information has been withheld
and the reasons for any redaction.    Where applicable, the Council has
also told you the reasons for the delay in responding to your request.

 

If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been
handled you can request a review by writing to the Solutions Team within
40 working days from the date of the Council’s response.  You are entitled
to a review by the Council if:

·         You are dissatisfied with the Council’s explanation of why the
application was not dealt with within the 20 working day time limit.

·         All the information requested is not being disclosed and you
have not received an explanation why some information is not being
disclosed.

·         A reason for the disclosures under the request being refused is
not received.

·         You consider that exemptions have been wrongly applied, and/or

·         You consider that a fee has been wrongly applied.

Please set out your grounds for seeking a review together with what
specific part of your request those grounds apply to and the outcome you
are seeking.  The Council reserves the right to ask you for clarification
of the grounds for your review request if the grounds are not clear, and
to delay commencing the review if such grounds are not provided.

 

The Solutions Team can be contacted by email via: 
[1][Cheshire West and Chester Council request email] or at the following address:

 

Solutions Team

Cheshire West and Chester Council

HQ

58 Nicholas Street

Chester

CH1 2NP

 

The Solutions Team will acknowledge a request for an internal review
within 5 working days and complete the review as soon as possible and no
later than 40 working days from receipt of the request.

 

More information about the Council’s internal review process can be found
via:
[2]http://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk...

 

If you remain dissatisfied following the outcome of your review, you have
a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner at:

 

The Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

 

Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45

Website: [3]www.ico.gov.uk

 

There is no charge for making an appeal.

Yours sincerely

David P Finlay

The Solutions Team

HQ Building

2nd floor

Chief Executives Office

Te: 01244-972235

Winners of the MJ 2015 Best Achieving Council National Achievement Award

 

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References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Cheshire West and Chester Council request email]
2. http://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk...
3. http://www.ico.gov.uk/

Dear FOI West,

These statistics do not surprise me. Not a great success for the victims and one has to ask why.

My complaints in Cheshire County Council's Rights of Way Unit didn't get anywhere yet this was a classic case of management-led bullying which is appearing on the internet now. Got them into an 8 day tribunal in the end.

I have a follow-up FOI question which I number 7 to keep the order.

7) Out of how many of those 10 allegations did the complainant of bullying claim that the bullies were telling lies?

Yours sincerely,

Yabootoyou

FOI West, Cheshire West and Chester Council

Dear Sir

Further to your additional question this has been logged under the same reference for continuity with your 'What do they know' reference.

The new due date is 8 October 2015.

Solutions Team

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Cheshire West and Chester Council

RE: Your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Case Reference: 101003381367

Dear Yabootoyou

Thank you for your email of 8 September regarding a question 7. Further to confirming that we would treat under same reference number as 3305205 we have now logged under a separate reference 3381367.

It will be treated as a request within the meaning of the Act: this means that we will send you a full response within 20 working days, either supplying you with the information which you want, or explaining to you why we cannot supply it.

If we need any further clarification or there is any problem we will be in touch.

In the meantime if you wish to discuss this further please contact FOIWEST It would be helpful if you could quote the log number.

Yours sincerely

Solutions Team

Cheshire West and Chester Council

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Yabootoyou left an annotation ()

Request for internal review sent to Cheshire East recently.

Dear FOI East,

I do wish to complain and please forward this onto the complaints
unit you refer to in your letter - I do not wish to reply by post.
My complaint is that your response is out of time and that
therefore you have not respected the law in this FOI request. I did
not get any explanation prior to the deadline of the 17th September
that the request was going to be delayed yet this must have been
known to you. In your response, I have also not received any
reference to, explanation for or apology for this missing of the
deadline, which I find rude in the least.

I not that your reply to Question 1, the number of complaints of
bullying, was 62 yet in Cheshire West it was 10. Cheshire East had
more complaints upheld than Cheshire West had complaints in total.
That's a big difference in the number of bullying complaints. It
seems that in Cheshire East bullying is a big problem and the
reference in the Macclesfield to it seems accurate.

Yours sincerely,

Yabootoyou

FOI West, Cheshire West and Chester Council

Dear Yabootoyou,
 
Thank you for your request for information which has been logged as a new
request under reference 3381367, but links to your previous request
3305205.
 
Your request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) 2000.  For the purposes of clarity we now reproduce your request
and append our response below:
 
7)  Out of how many of those 10 allegations did the complainant of
bullying claim that the bullies were telling lies?
 
We can confirm that the Council do hold information relevant to your
request.  The figure of 10 cases came from a central case tracking system
held in the Council’s HR department.  Of the 10 cases identified, detailed
case records are only held for 8 of the 10 cases.  Within these 8 case
files, 1 included allegations of “telling lies”.  
 
The Council considers that your request has been answered in full by
either confirming that information is not held, providing you with the
information requested, or explaining why any information has been
withheld  and the reasons for any redaction.  Where applicable, the
Council has also told you the reasons for the delay in responding to your
request.
 
If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been 
handled you can request a review by writing to the Solutions Team within
40 working days from the date of the Council’s response.  You are
entitled  to a review by the Council if:
 

* You are dissatisfied with the Council’s explanation of why the 
application was not dealt with within the 20 working day time limit.
* All the information requested is not being disclosed and you  have not
received an explanation why some information is not being  disclosed.
* A reason for the disclosures under the request being refused is  not
received.
* You consider that exemptions have been wrongly applied, and/or
* You consider that a fee has been wrongly applied.

 
Please set out your grounds for seeking a review together with what
specific part of your request those grounds apply to and the outcome you 
are seeking.  The Council reserves the right to ask you for clarification 
of the grounds for your review request if the grounds are not clear, and 
to delay commencing the review if such grounds are not provided.
 
The Solutions Team can be contacted by email via:  [1][Cheshire West and
Chester Council request email] or at the following address:
 
Solutions Team
Cheshire West and Chester Council
HQ
58 Nicholas Street
Chester
CH1 2NP
 
The Solutions Team will acknowledge a request for an internal review 
within 5 working days and complete the review as soon as possible and no 
later than 40 working days from receipt of the request.
 
More information about the Council’s internal review process can be found
via:
[1]http://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk...
If you remain dissatisfied following the outcome of your review, you have 
a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner at:
 
The Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
 
Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45
Website: [3][2]www.ico.gov.uk
 
There is no charge for making an appeal.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Stephanie Harrison
Solutions Team
Cheshire West and Chester Council
Location: HQ, Nicholas Street, Chester, CH1 2NP 
Visit:  cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk
 

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Yabootoyou left an annotation ()

The Council DOES hold, not The Council DO hold. Bad English.

Dear FOI West,

Please inform me -

1) How much staff time it has taken your authority to research the information in Questions 1 to 7 above and to reply, in total hours.
2) How much is this in staff costs, taking into account the salaries of the staff concerned.
3) If you cannot give a precise figure on time, please provide a maximum and minimum or best guess. Please do the same taking into account the officer salaries, which are known to you and provide me with an approximate costing.

Yours sincerely,

Yabootoyou

Cheshire West and Chester Council

1 Attachment

RE: Your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Case Reference: 101003482153

Dear Yabootoyou

Thank you for your email of 9 October 2015 timed at 18:57, as a follow up enquiry to 3305205.

It will be treated as a request within the meaning of the Act: this means that we will send you a full response within 20 working days, either supplying you with the information which you want, or explaining to you why we cannot supply it.

If we need any further clarification or there is any problem we will be in touch.

In the meantime if you wish to discuss this further please contact FOIWEST. It would be helpful if you could quote the log number.

Yours sincerely

Solutions Team

Cheshire West and Chester Council

FOI West, Cheshire West and Chester Council

Dear Yabootoyou

Thank you for your request for information.

Section 8(1)(b) of the FOIA requires a valid name of the requester. The Council does not consider ‘Yabootoyou’ a valid name but has elected on this occasion to comply with your ‘invalid’ request. Please be advised however, that as no valid name of the requester has been provided, you will have no recourse to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner if you are dissatisfied with the response. This is because the Commissioner’s powers only extend to requests for information as defined under Section 8 of the Act. Further guidance on this matter, issued by the Information Commissioner, is available via the following link: https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...

Your request is as follows:

1) How much staff time it has taken your authority to research the information in Questions 1 to 7 above [the Council takes this as its response to your previous request references 3305205 and 3381367] and to reply, in total hours.
2) How much is this in staff costs, taking into account the salaries of the staff concerned.
3) If you cannot give a precise figure on time, please provide a maximum and minimum or best guess. Please do the same taking into account the officer salaries, which are known to you and provide me with an approximate costing.

We can confirm that the Council does not hold information about the time and cost of processing Freedom of Information requests. This is because the authority is unable to quantify the time and cost of answering Freedom of Information requests because the Council does not have dedicated officers fulfilling this role. Depending on the nature and complexity of the requests FOIs can be dealt with by a wide number of officers throughout the authority. The Central Solutions Team manages the requests through a network of Champions within the service areas who circulate the request to the most relevant officers able to respond. When considering exemptions/exceptions the Solutions Team will also liaise with Legal Services. There is no time recording by officers involved with FOI requests under corporate policy and further the team has a wider remit other than FOI requests.

For clarity, where FOI requests are considered, at early triage, to be likely to exceed the 'appropriate limit' under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the Council will assess the likely time taken to identify, locate and extract the information requested [if held] and provide a breakdown of estimated costs to the applicant. As your request references 3305205 and 3381367 did not require a Fees Notice to be considered no record of the time taken to answer these requests is held.

We trust this answers your enquiry.

The Council considers that your request has been answered in full by either confirming that information is not held, providing you with the information requested, or explaining why any information has been withheld and the reasons for any redaction. Where applicable, the Council has also told you the reasons for the delay in responding to your request.

If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been handled you can request a review by writing to the Solutions Team within 40 working days from the date of the Council’s response. You are entitled to a review by the Council if:
• You are dissatisfied with the Council’s explanation of why the application was not dealt with within the 20 working day time limit.
• All the information requested is not being disclosed and you have not received an explanation why some information is not being disclosed.
• A reason for the disclosures under the request being refused is not received.
• You consider that exemptions have been wrongly applied, and/or
• You consider that a fee has been wrongly applied.
Please set out your grounds for seeking a review together with what specific part of your request those grounds apply to and the outcome you are seeking. The Council reserves the right to ask you for clarification of the grounds for your review request if the grounds are not clear, and to delay commencing the review if such grounds are not provided.

The Solutions Team can be contacted by email via: [Cheshire West and Chester Council request email] or at the following address:

Solutions Team
Cheshire West and Chester Council
HQ
58 Nicholas Street
Chester
CH1 2NP

The Solutions Team will acknowledge a request for an internal review within 5 working days and complete the review as soon as possible and no later than 40 working days from receipt of the request.

More information about the Council’s internal review process can be found via: http://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk...

Yours sincerely

Alison Dennett
Solutions Officer
Cheshire West and Chester Council

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Dear FOI West,

I would like to add the following question to my request.

Q9) Out of the number in the response to question 1, how many of the complainants said that they had been called "a loner"?

Yours sincerely,

Mr Lewis

Yabootoyou

Yours sincerely,

Yabootoyou