2011 Scarborough TRO
Dear Scarborough Borough Council,
In 2011, as agents to North Yorkshire County Council, Scarborough Borough Council produced a Traffic Regulation Order that was used to create Controlled Parking Zones in large areas of the town.
I require a copy of the 2011 'Statement of Reason' that would have been legally necessary to create the CPZs.
I also require information about how the 2011 'Notice of Proposal' was advertised throughout the different zones.
Yours faithfully,
Tim Thorne
Dear Scarborough Borough Council,
Just for clarification, the 'Statement of Reasons' used to create the CPZs in Scarborough is likely dated around 1998/9.
In addition to this request, I require the following 'Statement Of Reasons' for the following TROs:
The 2000 Consolidation Order that had 15 amendments,
The 2004 Consolidation Order that had 30+ amendments,
The 2007 Consolidation Order that had 30+ amendments,
The 2011 Consolidation Order that had 30+ amendments.
Having asked the current Highways Authority, they inform me they do not hold copies of the requested documents and suggested you are the relevant authority that holds these documents.
Yours faithfully,
Tim Thorne
Dear Scarborough Borough Council,
A response to this simple FOI request is long overdue and this is now a request for an Internal Review.
This is just a friendly reminder to ask the Borough Council to
disclose information in a timely fashion or issue a valid refusal
notice, which in turn will save the Information Commissioner's
Office work in reprimanding the Council for ignoring FOI requests.
Yours faithfully,
Tim Thorne
Dear Mr Thorne
I write in response to the various requests you have made under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). For completeness, I set out below
all of your outstanding requests under the relevant reference numbers
applied to them by the Council:
FOIA3342
“In 2011, as agents to North Yorkshire County Council, Scarborough Borough
Council produced a Traffic Regulation Order that was used to create
Controlled Parking Zones in large areas of the town.
I require a copy of the 2011 'Statement of Reason' that would have been
legally necessary to create the CPZs.
I also require information about how the 2011 'Notice of Proposal' was
advertised throughout the different zones.”
FOIA3360
“Please could you supply a list of allowances and expense payments paid to
Councillors and any Co-Optees for financial years 2012/13 & 2013/14.
You have previously published these figures on your website, but for some
reason you have neglected to do so for the last couple of years.”
FOIA3361
“Just for clarification, the 'Statement of Reasons' used to create the
CPZs in Scarborough is likely dated around 1998/9.
In addition to this request, I require the following 'Statement Of
Reasons' for the following TROs:
The 2000 Consolidation Order that had 15 amendments,
The 2004 Consolidation Order that had 30+ amendments,
The 2007 Consolidation Order that had 30+ amendments,
The 2011 Consolidation Order that had 30+ amendments.
Having asked the current Highways Authority, they inform me they do not
hold copies of the requested documents and suggested you are the relevant
authority that holds these documents.”
FOIA3368
“For each of the five current senior officers, please can you let me know
how many miles they've claimed for on Council business during the last
four financial years?
2013/14
2012/13
2011/12
2010/11
For each of the five current senior officers, please can you let me know
if the Council paid those senior officers a one off payment as part of the
Council's Officer Car Allowance Scheme during the last four financial
years?
2013/14
2012/13
2011/12
2010/11
For avoidance of doubt, the five senior officers are Jim Dillon, Hilary
Jones, Lisa Dixon, Nicholas Edwards and Andrew Skelton.”
FOIA3370
“Please could you let me know the salary and employer pension
contributions of the following positions within your organisation for the
last four full financial years and also the current 2014/15 financial
year.
Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service
Deputy Chief Executive
Director of Democratic and Legal Services & Monitoring Officer
Director of Business Support & S151 Officer
Director of Service Delivery
If the council has made or will make any other payments to those
positions, please detail those payments.”
FOIA3412
“In financial year 2011/12 a payment of £100,285 was made to a member of
staff to terminate their employment. Please could you disclose the role
this was paid to. Please disclose how much was for compensation and for
pension.
In financial year 2011/12 payments totalling £131,661 was made to three
members of staff to terminate their employment. Please could you disclose
the roles this was paid to. Please disclose how much was for compensation
and for pension for each role.
In financial year 2012/13 a payment of £105,748 was made to a member of
staff to terminate their employment. Please could you disclose the role
this was paid to. Please disclose how much was for compensation and for
pension.
In financial year 2012/13 a payment of £92,434 was made to a member of
staff to terminate their employment. Please could you disclose the role
this was paid to. Please disclose how much was for compensation and for
pension.
In financial year 2012/13 a payment of £66,220 was made to a member of
staff to terminate their employment. Please could you disclose the role
this was paid to. Please disclose how much was for compensation and for
pension.
In financial year 2012/13 payments totalling £179,364 was made to four
members of staff to terminate their employment. Please could you disclose
the roles this was paid to. Please disclose how much was for compensation
and for pension for each role.
In financial year 2013/14 a payment of £65,867 was made to a member of
staff to terminate their employment. Please could you disclose the role
this was paid to. Please disclose how much was for compensation and for
pension.
In the draft statement of accounts for financial year 2013/14, section 31,
Officers' Remuneration 2013/14, payments of £51,558 for compensation and
£55,190 for pension were made to Strategic Director 1 to terminate
employment of that role. Those do not appear in section 32 Termination
Benefits under 2013/14. Please explain why.”
Response
It is the Council’s position that your requests are vexatious under
section 14(1) of the FOIA, which states:
Section 1(1) [of the FOIA] does not oblige a public authority to comply
with a request for information if the request is vexatious.
All of the above requests have been made through the ‘what do they know’
website, and you are obviously very aware that any response the Council
makes to the same is almost immediately published on that website. At the
foot of all of your email requests is the following:
“Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[unique email address specific to the request]”
Notwithstanding your request that “all replies” are sent to the respective
‘what do they know’ website email addresses, the Council is instead
sending the full text of its response to your private email address. This
is so that you can consider and determine whether in your view it is in
the interests of transparency to publish the Council’s full response on
the ‘what do they know’ website so the public can see why the Council is
relying on section 14(1) of the FOIA. This is a matter entirely at your
discretion.
As will be stated in the email being sent separately, if you do decide to
publish the content of that email, we require that you publish it in full.
This response is the Council’s response to all of the requests listed
above and applies to them equally. It has therefore been sent to all of
the response email addresses supplied (with each of these addresses used
in the Bcc section of the email).
Please note that this email is a refusal notice. The full reasoning behind
this decision is contained within the email being sent to your personal
email address.
Review
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your
request and wish to make a complaint or request a review of our decision,
you should write to Freedom of Information, Scarborough Borough Council,
Town Hall, St Nicholas Street, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO11 2HG or
email [1][Scarborough Borough Council request email]
If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the
Information Commissioner’s Office cannot make a decision unless you have
exhausted the complaints procedure provided by Scarborough Borough
Council. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF | Tel: 0303 123 1113 | Fax: 01625 524510 | Web: [2]www.ico.org.uk.
Yours sincerely
David Kitson
Solicitor
Deputy Monitoring Officer
Regulatory and Governance Manager
Democratic and Legal Services, Scarborough Borough Council
Dear Scarborough Borough Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Scarborough Borough Council's handling of my FOI request '2011 Scarborough TRO'.
I am unhappy that the council has declared this request vexatious and do not believe that is a valid reason to refuse this request.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2...
Yours faithfully,
Tim Thorne
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Ganesh Sittampalam left an annotation ()
The response above dated 20th August was sent on that date to this request address. Du to a technical limitation in the WhatDoTheyKnow software in handling BCCd email, it was not shown on the request thread until I manually moved it just now.
Ganesh - WhatDoTheyKnow volunteer