North East Lincolnshire Council's “standard costs”

Ron made this Freedom of Information request to North East Lincolnshire Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was partially successful.

Dear North East Lincolnshire Council,

I made a FOI request to HMCTS as a consequence of the response to the following FOI request made to North East Lincolnshire Council:

"Council Tax prosecutions – pre & post benefit reforms"

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

The below links to the request made to HMCTS:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/g...

They are of the opinion that a FOI request would be more successful directed to North East Lincolnshire Council as per their suggestion:

"It is of course open to you to make a Freedom of Information request to [North East Lincolnshire Council], to provide information as to how their “standard costs” are arrived at..."

In light of this will North East Lincolnshire Council please provide information as to how its “standard costs” are arrived at in relation to Council Tax Liability Order applications?

Yours faithfully,

Ron

PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Ron 
 
I am pleased to acknowledge your request for information, asking how
“standard costs” are arrived at in relation to Council Tax Liability Order
applications?
 
Your request has been allocated the reference number 6055_1314. I wish to
confirm that North East Lincolnshire Council does hold a breakdown of the
Summons Costs.
 
I can confirm that the Council is currently in consultation with District
Audit to produce and publish a document outlining the costs to the council
and the reasonable costs incurred. At present this information is only in
draft and the authority are awaiting comments to be made by District
Audit.
 
The Freedom of Information Act 2000, Section 22 (1) states information is
exempt information if—
 

 a. the information is held by the public authority with a view to its
publication, by the authority or any other person, at some future date
(whether determined or not),

 

 b. the information was already held with a view to such publication at
the time when the request for information was made, and

 

 c. it is reasonable in all the circumstances that the information should
be withheld from disclosure until the date referred to in paragraph
(a).

 
Section 22 is a qualified exemption, therefore before it can be applied
the balance of public interest must be considered.
 
We have determined that at this time the public interest is to ensure that
the Council can effectively consult with District Audit, and that the
application of the section 22 exemption is in the public interest. The
breakdown of the Summons Costs is therefore at this time exempt from
disclosure by virtue of section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act. 
 
In adherence to the above North East Lincolnshire Council will produce and
publish the document once consultation has concluded with the District
Audit.
 
If you are unhappy with the response you have received, you have the right
to request an internal review by the Council. If following this you are
still dissatisfied you may contact the Office of the Information
Commissioner. If you wish to request an internal review, please contact me
and I will make the necessary arrangements.
 
Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council
 
Feedback Officer
Resources Directorate
 

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Neil Gilliatt (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Re, North East Lincolnshire Council's response:

"....I can confirm that the Council is currently in consultation with District Audit to produce and publish a document outlining the costs to the council and the reasonable costs incurred...."

Watch this council very carefully, they'll be trying (and will succeed) to pull the wool over the auditor's eyes.

The council's auditor has, in the first instance, been supplied correspondence alleging to NELC defrauding its council taxpayers "en masse" with court costs. However, the receipt of evidence submitted subsequently has not been acknowledged by the auditor and so presume he is more likely to be influenced by officers at the council feeding misleading information and lies to satisfy him that their accounts are true and reasonable.

I know the council have tried the same tactics in the past, for instance when it lied repeatedly to the Information Commissioner about not holding information it in fact did hold.

An application was made (almost a year ago) to the Magistrates' court to state a case to get these issues into the High Court. The Magistrates' court through misplacing the application, ignoring correspondence and breaching the Criminal Procedure Rules has managed successfully to stall the application for almost a year. Even an application for mandatory order through Judicial Review to coerce the court to play its part in the appeal to state the case has up until now failed.

I guess the tactics of delaying the appeal are so when the case is eventually put before the High Court, the council will produce its evidence, backed by the auditor's approval whose decision will have been influenced by the biased council.

Dear PPD - FOI,

"I wish to confirm that North East Lincolnshire Council does hold a breakdown of the Summons Costs."

Are you able to release this information?

If not are you able to approximate the date it may be available for release?

Yours sincerely,

Ron

PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Ron

Further to your correspondence concerning the response to request 6055_1314, and the Council's breakdown of the Summons Costs I am pleased to confirm that this information is currently in draft form and is therefore not available for disclosure until after we have received comments from District Audit.

No date is currently known for when the this information will be published on our website.

I trust that this answers your queries, and we thank you for your patience in this matter.

If you are unhappy with the response you have received, you have the right to request an internal review by the Council. If following this you are still dissatisfied you may contact the Office of the Information Commissioner. If you wish to request an internal review, please contact me and I will make the necessary arrangements.

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

Feedback Officer
Resources Directorate

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Dear PPD - FOI,

Further to your correspondence of 14 November 2013 concerning the Council's draft breakdown of Summons Costs.

I am keen to know whether NELC has received comments from the District Audit and if so what those comments were. Would it also be possible to estimate when the information will be available for disclosure?

Yours sincerely,

Ron

PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Ron

I am pleased to acknowledge your request for information, which has been allocated the reference number 6419_1314

Your request has been passed to the relevant department for processing and you can expect your response within the 20 working day limit. If it will take us longer than 20 working days to respond to you, we will inform you of this and provide you with the expected date for receiving a response.

Further information about how we will deal with your Freedom of Information requests is available on our website at: http://www.nelincs.gov.uk/council/the-co....

Please feel free to contact me if you require any further information or assistance quoting the reference number above.

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

Feedback Officer
Resources Directorate

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PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Ron 

 

Thank you for your information request, reference number 6419_1314.

 

I wish to confirm that North East Lincolnshire Council holds the following
information

 

“Further to your correspondence of 14 November 2013 concerning the
Council's draft breakdown of Summons Costs.

 

I am keen to know whether NELC has received comments from the District
Audit and if so what those comments were. Would it also be possible to
estimate when the information will be available for disclosure?”

 

North East Lincolnshire Council have not received any comments from the
District Audit relating to Summons Costs.

 

Please see the below link

[1]http://www.nelincs.gov.uk/resident/counc...

 

If you are unhappy with the response you have received, you have the right
to request an internal review by the Council. If following this you are
still dissatisfied you may contact the Office of the Information
Commissioner. If you wish to request an internal review, please contact me
and I will make the necessary arrangements.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Feedback Officer

 

North East Lincolnshire Council

 

 

From: Ron [2][mailto:[FOI #182395 email]]

Sent: 13 December 2013 11:03

To: PPD - FOI

Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request 6055_1314

 

Dear PPD - FOI,

 

Further to your correspondence of 14 November 2013 concerning the
Council's draft breakdown of Summons Costs.

 

I am keen to know whether NELC has received comments from the District
Audit and if so what those comments were. Would it also be possible to
estimate when the information will be available for disclosure?

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Ron

 

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Dear PPD - FOI,

In light of your statement:

a) "I am pleased to confirm that this information is currently in draft form and is therefore not available for disclosure until after we have received comments from District Audit",

And

b) "North East Lincolnshire Council have not received any comments from the District Audit relating to Summons Costs",

And that the calculation now appears on the council's website, is the reason that there are no comments from the Auditor, because he would not want to risk the prospects of doing time for sanctioning false accounts?

Yours sincerely,

Ron

PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Ron,

Thank you for your request for further information, reference number 6419_1314.

North East Lincolnshire Council does not hold any documents matching the criteria specified in your request.

Please be aware that the wording of your correspondence, appears vexatious in nature and intended to raise unfounded allegations, with no real intention to obtain information held by North East Lincolnshire Council. Whilst the Council has answered your requests this time, section 14 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if that request is determined to be vexatious.

If you are unhappy with the response you have received you have the right to request an internal review by the Council. If following this you remain dissatisfied you may contact the Office of the Information Commissioner. If you wish to request an internal review, please contact me and I will make the necessary arrangements.

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

Feedback Officer
Resources Directorate

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Dear PPD - FOI,

"...Please be aware that the wording of your correspondence, appears vexatious in nature and intended to raise unfounded allegations..."

Let me remove any doubt you might have.

The accounts appear to have been falsified in order for the authority to criminally profit from North East Lincolnshire residents through the costs it claims in applications to the Magistrates' Court.

Yours sincerely,

Ron