Unitary Council commnications with Somerset County Council (SCC)

The request was successful.

Dear Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government,

Somerset County Council (SCC) is in dire financial straits and there is very high local, regional and national public interest:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-so...

Please note that in a previous appealed on a merger of two local councils in Somerset FOI (for Taunton Deane and West Somerset) the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) upheld my appeal that the high public interest overrode the use of the exemption by the DCLG (now MHCLG) in Case Reference Number FS50680668.

"1. The complainant has requested information regarding the lobbying and communication around the decision to use the Devolution Act and suspend the existing involvement of the Boundary Commission in relation to the merger of Taunton Deane Borough Council and West Somerset Council. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Department for Communities and Local Government has incorrectly applied the exemption for information that relates to the formulation or development of government policy at section 35(1)(a) of the FOIA."

I believe that the public interest case for SCC is directly comparable and even higher and this exemption should NOT be applied (again).

The lack of information disclosed was taken to the First-Tier Tribunal (FTT) on appeal in what the presiding Judge Hazel Oliver described as "an unusual case".

A number of DCLG/MHCLG data retrieval and disclosure issues were highlighted in their measured refusal of my FTT appeal on:

http://informationrights.decisions.tribu...

"28. Since issuing this appeal the appellant has submitted further FOIA requests to DCLG.
He says that he sought professional advice from the Chief Executive of the Campaign for
Freedom of Information in framing a new request. This asked for “any information held” in
connection with the merger which relates to the use of procedures under the Devolution Act or the holding of a public consultation. DCLG initially asked for clarification, the appellant explained that the request was not ambiguous, and DCLG then replied confirming that they held the information but it would be too costly to locate, retrieve and extract it."

"31. This is an unusual appeal, as the IC had found in the appellant’s favour and required
disclosure of the requested information. The appellant takes issue with the information which was then disclosed, and the IC’s lack of investigation."

"37. We would note that the appellant’s case was presented to us in a balanced and coherent way, and backed up by the evidence from Mr Liddell-Grainger’s statement about meetings and other communications. It does appear self-evident that there must at least be some communications between DCLG and the Councils (and potentially third parties) about the decision to use the Devolution Act for this merger – even if this is limited to one party proposing this approach and the other agreeing. This is information that appears to be covered by the First Narrowed Request."

"40. It is notable that the appellant’s later FOIA request on the same topic has been refused on the basis of cost. As the requests are similar and on the same topic, this suggests that there would appear to be significantly more information which falls within the scope of the appellant’s original narrowed request, as properly interpreted.

41. The appellant was quite clear at the hearing as to what information he was expecting to receive in response to his narrowed request and what he thinks is missing. We would expect DCLG to provide advice and assistance as required by section 16 of FOIA if the appellant makes a further re-focused request, as referred to in the letter from DCLG of 31 July 2018. In the circumstances it seems unlikely that such a request on this topic would be vexatious."

Through another FOI request, I have determined that the MHCLG uses the highly searchable Exchange corporate email system and that has online storage going back for a period of around 2 years:

"The Department uses the email software system Microsoft Exchange with Microsoft
Outlook client. The supplier of this software is Fujitsu. Exchange does support a
keyword or text string search across all Exchange mail accounts."

"I should confirm that emails are longer archived within Enterprise Vault;
this function was turned off approximately two years ago. Enterprise Vault
was mentioned within our original response as staff may have old emails
still in the vault. However more recent emails will be in mailboxes"

I would not, therefore, expect that the FOIA search time limit would be reached by the following FOI questions.

Northamptonshire County Council has recently gone through a financial crisis involving s114 insolvency notices; the intercession of Government-appointed commissioners and a unitary council reorganisation abolishing eight existing councils in favour of two unitary councils.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-no...

This appears to again involve the use of the Devolution Act to impose local council reorganisation as the article states "Legally, only one council needs to vote to back the plan for it to go to the Secretary of State for approval."

To aid effective and time efficient searching the date range is from the 1st April 2018 to the current date (when this FOI request is acted upon).

The domain name for location of all relevant emails from Somerset County Council is "somerset.gov.uk".

Q1. Please disclose all emails within the requested date range from Somerset County Council and the MHCLG (Ministers, Civil Servants, Advisers etc) regarding proposals for unitary reorganisation in Somerset and all MHCLG replies?

Q2a. Please disclose all emails within the requested date range from the Somerset MP for Taunton Deane Rebecca Pow and the MHCLG (Ministers, Civil Servants, Advisers etc) regarding proposals for unitary reorganisation in Somerset and all MHCLG replies?

Q2b. Please disclose all emails within the requested date range from the Somerset MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset and the MHCLG (Ministers, Civil Servants, Advisers etc) regarding proposals for unitary reorganisation in Somerset and all MHCLG replies?

Yours faithfully,

Dave Orr

Dear Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government,

The name of the Bridgwater & West Somerset MP was missed - It is Ian Liddell-Grainger.

The subject heading should read "communications" - it was a typo.

Yours faithfully,

Dave Orr

Despatch Box,

                            
Our reference: 3899805             Information request

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Thank you for your email. We are currently processing your request. If you
have any questions, please ask by return email. Please don’t change the
subject line when replying as this could delay your message getting to the
right person.
 
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Fry Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
 
 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.

Despatch Box,

                            
Our reference: 3899805             Information request

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
Dear Sir
 
Freedom of Information Act 2000
 
Thank you for contacting us on 13 September 2018.  Your request was:
"Somerset County Council (SCC) is in dire financial straits and there is
very high local, regional and national public interest:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-so...

Please note that in a previous appealed on a merger of two local councils
in Somerset FOI (for Taunton Deane and West Somerset) the Information
Commissioner's Office (ICO) upheld my appeal that the high public interest
overrode the use of the exemption by the DCLG (now MHCLG) in Case
Reference Number FS50680668.

"1. The complainant has requested information regarding the lobbying and
communication around the decision to use the Devolution Act and suspend
the existing involvement of the Boundary Commission in relation to the
merger of Taunton Deane Borough Council and West Somerset Council. The
Commissioner’s decision is that the Department for Communities and Local
Government has incorrectly applied the exemption for information that
relates to the formulation or development of government policy at section
35(1)(a) of the FOIA."

I believe that the public interest case for SCC is directly comparable and
even higher and this exemption should NOT be applied (again).

The lack of information disclosed was taken to the First-Tier Tribunal
(FTT) on appeal in what the presiding Judge Hazel Oliver described as "an
unusual case".

A number of DCLG/MHCLG data retrieval and disclosure issues were
highlighted in their measured refusal of my FTT appeal on:

http://informationrights.decisions.tribu...

"28. Since issuing this appeal the appellant has submitted further FOIA
requests to DCLG.
He says that he sought professional advice from the Chief Executive of the
Campaign for
Freedom of Information in framing a new request. This asked for “any
information held” in
connection with the merger which relates to the use of procedures under
the Devolution Act or the holding of a public consultation. DCLG initially
asked for clarification, the appellant explained that the request was not
ambiguous, and DCLG then replied confirming that they held the information
but it would be too costly to locate, retrieve and extract it."

"31. This is an unusual appeal, as the IC had found in the appellant’s
favour and required
disclosure of the requested information. The appellant takes issue with
the information which was then disclosed, and the IC’s lack of
investigation."

"37. We would note that the appellant’s case was presented to us in a
balanced and coherent way, and backed up by the evidence from Mr
Liddell-Grainger’s statement about meetings and other communications. It
does appear self-evident that there must at least be some communications
between DCLG and the Councils (and potentially third parties) about the
decision to use the Devolution Act for this merger – even if this is
limited to one party proposing this approach and the other agreeing. This
is information that appears to be covered by the First Narrowed Request."

"40. It is notable that the appellant’s later FOIA request on the same
topic has been refused on the basis of cost. As the requests are similar
and on the same topic, this suggests that there would appear to be
significantly more information which falls within the scope of the
appellant’s original narrowed request, as properly interpreted.

41. The appellant was quite clear at the hearing as to what information he
was expecting to receive in response to his narrowed request and what he
thinks is missing. We would expect DCLG to provide advice and assistance
as required by section 16 of FOIA if the appellant makes a further
re-focused request, as referred to in the letter from DCLG of 31 July
2018. In the circumstances it seems unlikely that such a request on this
topic would be vexatious."

Through another FOI request, I have determined that the MHCLG uses the
highly searchable Exchange corporate email system and that has online
storage going back for a period of around 2 years:

"The Department uses the email software system Microsoft Exchange with
Microsoft
Outlook client. The supplier of this software is Fujitsu. Exchange does
support a
keyword or text string search across all Exchange mail accounts."

"I should confirm that emails are longer archived within Enterprise Vault;
this function was turned off approximately two years ago. Enterprise Vault
was mentioned within our original response as staff may have old emails
still in the vault. However more recent emails will be in mailboxes"

I would not, therefore, expect that the FOIA search time limit would be
reached by the following FOI questions.

Northamptonshire County Council has recently gone through a financial
crisis involving s114 insolvency notices; the intercession of
Government-appointed commissioners and a unitary council reorganisation
abolishing eight existing councils in favour of two unitary councils.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-no...

This appears to again involve the use of the Devolution Act to impose
local council reorganisation as the article states "Legally, only one
council needs to vote to back the plan for it to go to the Secretary of
State for approval."

To aid effective and time efficient searching the date range is from the
1st April 2018 to the current date (when this FOI request is acted upon).

The domain name for location of all relevant emails from Somerset County
Council  is "somerset.gov.uk".

Q1. Please disclose all emails within the requested date range from
Somerset County Council and the MHCLG (Ministers, Civil Servants, Advisers
etc) regarding proposals for unitary reorganisation in Somerset and all
MHCLG replies?

Q2a. Please disclose all emails within the requested date range from the
Somerset MP for Taunton Deane Rebecca Pow and the MHCLG (Ministers, Civil
Servants, Advisers etc) regarding proposals for unitary reorganisation in
Somerset and all MHCLG replies?

Q2b. Please disclose all emails within the requested date range from the
Somerset MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset  and the MHCLG (Ministers,
Civil Servants, Advisers etc) regarding proposals for unitary
reorganisation in Somerset and all MHCLG replies?"

You have also contacted us seperately to supply the name of the MP for
Bridgwater and West Somerset, Ian Liddell-Grainger
 
I am dealing with your request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 and aim to send you a response by 11 October 2018.
 
If you have any questions, please ask by return email. Please leave the
subject line unchanged when replying, to make sure your email gets
straight to me.
 
Yours faithfully
 
FOI Business Partner 
 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.

Despatch Box,

                            
Our reference: 3899805             Information request

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr Orr
 
Freedom of Information Act 2000
 
Thank you for your request for information which was received on 13
September 2018.  I am writing to ask you to clarify your request. This is
because we need further details from you in order to identify and locate
the information.
I would be grateful if you could confirm if your request is for email
correspondence within the specified time frame, sent by and sent to the
relevant staff within MHCLG, namely the Governance Reform and Democracy
Unit as well as the Ministers and the Ministerial Offices,  rather than
emails sent to or sent from all Civil Servants at MHCLG?
As the request is currently worded it could imply emails to or from all
Civil Servants at MHCLG which would necessitate a search across all email
accounts, all personal drives and all shared drives as information is not
held in a single location. As has been explained in previous
correspondence no one member of staff can search all of the network at
once and we hold over 30 terabytes of information on the network across 21
servers. There is a limit to the amount of searching that can be
undertaken given the current network infrastructure, the time it can take
to initiate and then complete a search and finally the impact on network
efficiency whilst the searching is undertaken. 
 
Previously we have suggested that you focus requests to the work of the
staff in the relevant policy area so I would be grateful if you could
clarify if email correspondence from/to the Ministers (including their
Offices) and the Governance Reform and Democracy Unit are the focus of
this request. 
 
I will not be able to take this matter further without this extra
information from you. Please let me know by 17/12/2018.
 
If I do not hear from you within the timeframe provided, I shall take it
that you do not wish to pursue this request and will consider the request
closed. 
 
Yours faithfully
 
Knowledge and Information Access Team
 
 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.

Dear Despatch Box,

The narrowing "I would be grateful if you could confirm if your request is for email
correspondence within the specified time frame, sent by and sent to the
relevant staff within MHCLG, namely the Governance Reform and Democracy
Unit as well as the Ministers and the Ministerial Offices" is acceptable.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Despatch Box,

Dear Mr Orr,
 
Many thanks for your confirmation which was received on 18 September 2018.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Knowledge and Information Access Team

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Despatch Box,

The narrowing "I would be grateful if you could confirm if your request is
for email
correspondence within the specified time frame, sent by and sent to the
relevant staff within MHCLG, namely the Governance Reform and Democracy
Unit as well as the Ministers and the Ministerial Offices" is acceptable.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

show quoted sections

Dear Despatch Box,

Whtadotheyknow.com has flagged this FOI as overdue.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Despatch Box,

Dear Mr Orr,
 
Many thanks for letting us know.  The 20 working day deadline is
16/10/18.  This is because we needed to request clarification of the
request which you provided to us on 18/10/18. 
 
Your sincerely,
 
Knowledge and Information Access Team

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Despatch Box,

Whtadotheyknow.com has flagged this FOI as overdue.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

show quoted sections

Despatch Box,

12 Attachments

                            
Our reference: 3899805             Information request

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
Dear Mr Orr
 
Thank you for your recent request for information. I have attached my
formal response as well as the information that we hold.
Knowledge and Information Access Team
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

 
NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.