Bullying in Carmarthenshire Council

The request was partially successful.

Dear Carmarthenshire Council,

Following a realization that bullying in Cheshire East is about six times higher than in Cheshire West and Chester and having seen accusations of a culture of bullying in the former on the internet, combined with my own experiences of bullying in Cheshire County Council's Public Rights of Way unit and my own efforts to withstand that bullying (display of ID card of ex-employee in manager's office with picture of cow replacing her ID photo ([name removed]) or "anyone thinking of complaining yaboo to you" by [name removed] once complaints of bullying had been made) and the evidence of bullies in Employment Tribunal (which chopped and changed), this FOI request is being made to provide a comparison with Cheshire East to prove statistically in relation with other councils. It is also being made to make the public at large and in each authority aware of which councils are the worst offenders or the better examples. All councils have very similar anti-bullying / dignity at work policies, to which, from the results already in, they seem to stick to varying degrees. For example, the first non-Cheshire authority to reply, Kent County Council, shows 60 complaints against Cheshire East's 62, with both having 18 upheld in favour of the complainant. However, Kent's population is around 5 times greater than Cheshire East's. Also, Cheshire East replied to this FOI Act request 8 days late with no communication between the deadline and the 8 days after, whereas Kent replied 11 days after the request was made.

1) How many employees of your authority have
made an
official complaint of harassment and bullying at work since the 1st April 2009?

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?

7) Out of how many of those allegations (the number given to question 1) did the complainant of
bullying claim that the bullies were telling lies?

8) How many staff does your authority have and what is the current population within your authority's area?

Yours faithfully

Mr Lewis
yabootoyou

FOIA, Carmarthenshire County Council

Dear Mr. Yabootoyou,

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 27th October, 2015 and is being dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We are therefore required to provide a response within 20 working days, which will be on or before 24th November, 2015.

If we require clarification we will contact you as soon as possible – please note that the timescale for response specified above may be subject to change if this is the case.

In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any queries, remembering to quote the reference number above in any communications.

Yours sincerely
John Tillman
Swyddog Gwybodaeth a Diogelu Data
Adran y Prif Weithredwr
Cyngor Sir Gaerfyrddin

Information & Data Protection Officer
Chief Executive's Department
Carmarthenshire County Council
Mewnol/Internal: 4127
Allanol/External: 01267 224127

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Dear Carmarthenshire Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Carmarthenshire Council's handling of my FOI request 'Bullying in Carmarthenshire Council'.

Please note that since my request, I had your acknowledgement from John Tillman of the 28th October 2015 in which he referred to the deadline of the 24th November.

You are therefore out of time and I wish to challenge you on this.

If you could see your way to providing the information in my FOI
request ASAP I would be grateful, as I am ready to publish the
table of results, send it to the press and put it on the internet
and I wish to provide the average figures for all councils as well
as the figures for individual councils. This requires your
figures.

You are now aware that your late reply is holding this up.
Providing this would not take away the fact that you are already
late and this complaint.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/b...

Yours faithfully,

Yabootoyou

FOIA, Carmarthenshire County Council

Dear Mr Lewis,

I refer to your request for information, which was received on 27th October, 2015 and has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please accept my apologies for the delay in providing this response.

I will respond to your request in the order it was presented using numbered points as headings for ease of reference.

"1) How many employees of your authority have made an official complaint of harassment and bullying at work since the 1st April 2009?"

67

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

This is not recorded. A significant number of complaints are dealt with and resolved informally.

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

10 appeals were made.

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

None.

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

2.

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

2.

"7) Out of how many of those allegations (the number given to question 1) did the complainant of bullying claim that the bullies were telling lies?"

Not recorded.

"8) How many staff does your authority have and what is the current population within your authority's area?"

FTE 6246.35 (this does not include casuals/reliefs and staff employed by Voluntary Aided schools).

The usual resident population of the County as recorded by the 2011 census is 183,777.

Yours sincerely

John Tillman
Swyddog Gwybodaeth a Diogelu Data
Adran y Prif Weithredwr
Cyngor Sir Gaerfyrddin

Information & Data Protection Officer
Chief Executive's Department
Carmarthenshire County Council

Mewnol/Internal: 4127
Allanol/External: 01267 224127

Mae'r e-bost hwn ac unrhyw atodiadau yn gyfrinachol ac wedi'u bwriadu at ddefnydd yr unigolyn y'u cyfeiriwyd ato/ati yn unig. Os derbyniwch y neges hon trwy gamgymeriad, rhowch wybod i'r sawl a'i hanfonodd ar unwaith, dilëwch y neges o'ch cyfrifiadur a dinistriwch unrhyw gopïau papur ohoni. Ni ddylech ddangos yr e-bost i neb arall, na gweithredu ar sail y cynnwys. Eiddo'r awdur yw unrhyw farn neu safbwyntiau a fynegir, ac nid ydynt o reidrwydd yn cynrychioli safbwynt y Cyngor. Dylech wirio am firysau eich hunan cyn agor unrhyw atodiad. Nid ydym yn derbyn unrhyw atebolrwydd am golled neu niwed a all fod wedi'i achosi gan firysau meddalwedd neu drwy ryng-gipio'r neges hon neu ymyrryd â hi.

This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed.
If received in error please notify the sender immediately, delete the message from your computer and destroy any hard copies. The e-mail should not be disclosed to any other person, nor the contents acted upon.

Any views or opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Council.

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Dear FOIA,

Thank you for the information. However, given that the amount of time between the original request and your reply (your reply being about three months out of time), whilst you apologize I would have expected a stronger apology which I have had from other councils for much lesser time periods. In fact, you are the champions of delay out of the almost 150 council's I have written to. Moreover, I would also have expected an explanation for this delay to have been proffered.

Perhaps you can reply to these two points before I decide whether to ask for a review.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Lewis

Yabootoyou

FOIA, Carmarthenshire County Council

Dear Mr Lewis,

Thank you for your email.

As stated below, we do apologise for the time it took to respond to your request and we take note of your comments in this regard.

The delay in responding was as a result of an administrative error - a draft had been prepared but was overlooked and not sent. The sheer volume of requests we receive was also a contributory factor.

Again, we are sincerely sorry for this and would assure you that we make every effort to provide timely responses to requests.

Yours sincerely

John Tillman
Swyddog Gwybodaeth a Diogelu Data
Adran y Prif Weithredwr
Cyngor Sir Gaerfyrddin

Information & Data Protection Officer
Chief Executive's Department
Carmarthenshire County Council

Mewnol/Internal: 4127
Allanol/External: 01267 224127

show quoted sections

Dear FOIA,

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

FOIA, Carmarthenshire County Council

Dear Mr. Lewis

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 15th April, 2016 and is being dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We are therefore required to provide a response within 20 working days, which will be on or before 16th May, 2016.

If we require clarification we will contact you as soon as possible – please note that the timescale for response specified above may be subject to change if this is the case.

In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any queries, remembering to quote the reference number above in any communications.

Yours sincerely
John Tillman
Swyddog Gwybodaeth a Diogelu Data
Adran y Prif Weithredwr
Cyngor Sir Gaerfyrddin

Information & Data Protection Officer
Chief Executive's Department
Carmarthenshire County Council
Mewnol/Internal: 4127
Allanol/External: 01267 224127

show quoted sections

FOIA, Carmarthenshire County Council

Dear Mr. Lewis
 
Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 15^th
April, 2016 and has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act
2000.
 
The specific information you requested was as follows:
 
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"?
 
In response, we do not hold information relevant to your request, as this
is not recorded.
 
Yours sincerely
John Tillman
Swyddog Gwybodaeth a Diogelu Data
Adran y Prif Weithredwr
Cyngor Sir Gaerfyrddin
Information & Data Protection Officer
Chief Executive's Department
Carmarthenshire County Council
Mewnol/Internal: 4127
Allanol/External: 01267 224127
 
 

Mae'r e-bost hwn ac unrhyw atodiadau yn gyfrinachol ac wedi'u bwriadu at
ddefnydd yr unigolyn y'u cyfeiriwyd ato/ati yn unig. Os derbyniwch y neges
hon trwy gamgymeriad, rhowch wybod i'r sawl a'i hanfonodd ar unwaith,
dilëwch y neges o'ch cyfrifiadur a dinistriwch unrhyw gopïau papur ohoni.
Ni ddylech ddangos yr e-bost i neb arall, na gweithredu ar sail y cynnwys.
Eiddo'r awdur yw unrhyw farn neu safbwyntiau a fynegir, ac nid ydynt o
reidrwydd yn cynrychioli safbwynt y Cyngor. Dylech wirio am firysau eich
hunan cyn agor unrhyw atodiad. Nid ydym yn derbyn unrhyw atebolrwydd am
golled neu niwed a all fod wedi'i achosi gan firysau meddalwedd neu drwy
ryng-gipio'r neges hon neu ymyrryd â hi.

 

This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for
the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. If received in error
please notify the sender immediately, delete the message from your
computer and destroy any hard copies. The e-mail should not be disclosed
to any other person, nor the contents acted upon. Any views or opinions
expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those
of the Council. You should carry out your own virus check before opening
any attachment. We accept no liability for any loss or damage which may be
caused by software viruses or interception/interruption of this mail.