2017 MJ Awards

The request was partially successful.

Dear Warrington Borough Council,

The Council was nominated for an award at the 2017 Municipal Journal awards.

Q1: Which organisation nominated the Council? If the Council was nominated for more than one award category, please list each category and the organisation which made the nomination
Q2: For any awards where the Council nominated itself, please provide copies of the nomination form submitted
Q3: Please provide copies of any press releases produced by the Council pertaining to the MJ awards 2017 – including any prior to the award ceremony and any which were issued after the award ceremony.
Q4: How many personnel attended the awards dinner in London? Please state the number of councillors and the number of officers
Q5: How much money did the Council spend on seats at the awards dinner? For clarity, where a place was sponsored by an external body, please do not include in this total ie only include Council expenditure
Q6: How much external sponsorship was received to support the event? Please list each sponsoring organisation and the sum provided
Q7: What were the travel, accommodation and subsistence costs for Council personnel, including councillors and officers, attending the event?

Yours faithfully,

Arthur Smith

FOI, Warrington Borough Council

Thank you for contacting Warrington Borough Council.
 
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References

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FOI ACE, Warrington Borough Council

Dear Mr Smith,

Thank you for your request received on 23rd June 2017 regarding the Council nomination at the MJ Awards 2017.

Your request has been logged and a response will be with you within the statutory 20 working days.

In the meantime if you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact ace_[Warrington Borough Council request email] quoting the above reference number.

Many thanks

The FOI Administrator

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FOI ACE, Warrington Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Smith,

 

Further to your Freedom of Information request we received on 23^rd June
2017, please see the attached response.

 

 

Thanks

 

The FOI Administrator

 

 

 

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Dear FOI ACE,

Thanks you. Your response was as follows:

"Q1: Which organisation nominated the Council? If the Council was nominated for more than one award category, please list each category and the organisation which made the nomination
Warrington Borough Council submitted a bid for the Innovation in Finance award as part of the Municipal Journal local government achievement awards.

Q2: For any awards where the Council nominated itself, please provide copies of the nomination form submitted
Please see attached the Council’s bid submission form made to the Municipal Journal.

Q3: Please provide copies of any press releases produced by the Council pertaining to the MJ awards 2017 – including any prior to the award ceremony and any which were issued after the award ceremony.
You can find the Council’s press release from March 2017 regarding their nomination and the event here.

Q4: How many personnel attended the awards dinner in London? Please state the number of councillors and the number of officers T
hree Warrington Borough Council employees attended the awards dinner in London.

Q5: How much money did the Council spend on seats at the awards dinner? For clarity, where a place was sponsored by an external body, please do not include in this total ie only include Council expenditure
The Council did not spend any money on seats at the awards dinner. Therefore, we do not hold any information as specified in your request.
Q6: How much external sponsorship was received to support the event? Please list each sponsoring organisation and the sum provided
The Council did not organise the event, therefore we do not hold any information as specified in your request.
However, the event was organised by the Municipal Journal who may be able to provide further information regarding the sponsorship of the event. Please see their contact details here.

Q7: What were the travel, accommodation and subsistence costs for Council personnel, including councillors and officers, attending the event?

The costs for Warrington Borough Council staff to attend the event were as follows:

Cost Types
Amount
Staff Time £414
Travel £167.80
Subsistence Costs – Car Parking £12
Hotel Accommodation £218 "

Could I clarify a couple of points? You said that the Council spent no money on seats to attend the dinner. Does this mean that staff did not attend the dinner at all, or that their seats were paid for by somebody else? The purpose of Q6 was to identify where seats were paid for by a sponsor. Could you clarify this please?

Yours sincerely,

Arthur Smith

Dear Warrington Borough Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Warrington Borough Council's handling of my FOI request '2017 MJ Awards'.

I received a partial response and requested clarification of the missing elements. However, I have received no response to my clarification 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,

Arthur Smith

FOI, Warrington Borough Council

Thank you for contacting Warrington Borough Council.
 
Your request for information has now been forwarded to the relevant
department who will respond directly to you.
 
This is an automated email from:
[Warrington Borough Council request email]
 
Please do not reply to this email.
 
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FOI ACE, Warrington Borough Council

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Smith,

 

Thank you for your email below in regards to our response to your FOI
dated 23^rd June 2017.

 

From reviewing your original request we provided a full response to the
enquiries you made (attached again).

 

Questions 5 and 6 which you are referring to from your original request
(23^rd June) were as follows:

 

Q5: How much money did the Council spend on seats at the awards dinner?
For clarity, where a place was sponsored by an external body, please do
not include in this total ie only include Council expenditure The Council
did not spend any money on seats at the awards dinner. Therefore, we do
not hold any information as specified in your request. 

 

Q6: How much external sponsorship was received to support the event?
Please list each sponsoring organisation and the sum provided The Council
did not organise the event, therefore we do  not hold any information  as
specified in your request.

However, the event was organised by the Municipal Journal who may be able
to provide further information regarding the sponsorship of the event.
Please see their contact details here. 

 

Question 5 above was specifically asking for how much the Council spent on
seats at the awards dinner and not to provide any expenditure if someone
sponsored the seats. We responded accordingly to this question. Question 6
is also specifically asking who sponsored the event rather than who
sponsored seats or tables at the event on for the council to attend.

 

Your subsequent email on Friday 7^th July which included the below two
additional questions (see the attached email):

 

Could I clarify a couple of points? You said that the Council spent no
money on seats to attend the dinner. Does this mean that staff did not
attend the dinner at all, or that their seats were paid for by somebody
else? The purpose of Q6 was to identify where seats were paid for by a
sponsor. Could you clarify this please?

 

We do not consider the above questions to be clarification ones as they
were not originally given to us to answer.

 

As a result of this, we will be dealing with these as a new request and we
have subsequently gave your request a new reference number. We have 20
working days to provide any information we may hold in relation to your
request.

 

Apologies for not acknowledging your additional request from 7^th July, we
will send this out by email later today.

 

We are currently establishing what information we may hold in relation to
your additional request which we are awaiting a reply internally in
regards to this.

 

If you still wish for an internal review to take place then please just
let us know.

 

 

Many thanks

 

The FOI Administrator

 

 

 

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Dear FOI ACE,

I don't wish to get into an argument, but when I asked the question " How much external sponsorship was received to support the event?" of 50 other local authorities, they interpreted it as meaning " How much external sponsorship was received by the council to support the event?" No other local authority thought I was asking them to answer on behalf of the Municipal Journal.

I will wait for your response with baited breath.

For the avoidance of doubt, can the Council absolutely confirm that it did not pay for seats at the dinner? For example, might a member of staff be claiming for these on their expenses?

Yours sincerely,

Arthur Smith

FOI ACE, Warrington Borough Council

Dear Mr Smith,

Thank you for your additional request below regarding the Council's nomination for the Innovation in Finance award as part of the Municipal Journal local government achievement awards.

Your request has been logged and a response will be with you within the statutory 20 working days.

In the meantime if you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact ace_[Warrington Borough Council request email] quoting the above reference number.

Many thanks

The FOI Administrator

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FOI ACE, Warrington Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Smith,

 

Further to your Freedom of Information request we received on 7^th July
2017, please see the attached response.

 

 

Thanks

 

The FOI Administrator

 

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Dear FOI ACE,

Thank you for - finally - answering the question. I can see why you tried to avoid doing so:

"Three Council members of staff attended the Awards dinner.

The purpose of Q6 was to identify where seats were paid for by a sponsor.
Could you clarify this please?
The table at the awards dinner was paid for by Redwood Bank Limited"

So Redwood Bank generously donated £900 so that the Council wouldn't have the embarrassment of paying for the seats at this event. I googled Redwood Bank, and it turns out that Warrington Council has controversially invested £30 million in the bank - which is a startup.

So this was taxpayers' money, it had just been laundered a little before you spent it

Yours sincerely,

Arthur Smith

Dear FOI ACE,

Sorry, just realised you haven't answered Q6. Could you confirm the magnitude of the donation from Redwood Bank?

Yours sincerely,

Arthur Smith

FOI ACE, Warrington Borough Council

Dear Mr Smith,

Please accept our apologies for this oversight by not answering that part of your request.

The Council is not aware of what amount Redwood Bank paid for the table at the event. Any payment made for the table at the event would have been paid directly by Redwood Bank to the Municipal Journal.

Therefore we do not hold the information as specified in your request.

You may be able to request this information from either the Municipal Journal or Redwood Bank directly.

You can find both of their contact details on the following websites:

http://redwoodbank.co.uk/contact/

https://awards.themj.co.uk/

Regards

The FOI Administrator

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So to summarise:

- The Council has paid out somewhere between £10 million and £30 million for a share in Redwood Bank
- Redwood Bank 'sponsored' the council's 3 tickets, spending - probably - about £1,500 of that £30 million
- You interpret this as the Council not spending anything

- This was for an awards ceremony which is as genuine as a nine bob note
- The Council nominated ITSELF
- But didn't win

Seems to me the winners here are the Municipal Journal, which makes a fortune from this phoney awards ceremony, and, in this case, Redwood Bank, which has persuaded the Warrington taxpayer to underwrite what should be a private sector risk.

Yours sincerely,

Arthur Smith