Complaint AB/Robert Earl

The request was refused by Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council.

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

I made a complaint to Wirral Borough Council about the behaviour of one of its officers on 8 August 2016. The reference is AB/ Robert Earl.

Please let me have any written materials relating to that complaint, investigation and/or decision.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Earl

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Earl,

 

Thank you for your recent request.

 

Wirral Council can confirm information will be made available to you as
part of the complaint procedure and that a response to your complaint is
due by 24th October 2016.

 

If you are dissatisfied with the response you receive to your complaint
please follow complaint procedure guidelines provided [1]here.

 

We trust that you find this information of assistance.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Tracy O'Hare

Information Management Officer

Records and Information Management

Legal and Member Services

Transformation and Resources

Wallasey Town Hall

Brighton Street
Wallasey
Wirral
CH44 8ED 

[2]Tel:0151 691 8397

Transformation and Resources

[3][Wirral Borough Council request email]

 

 

[4]LGC Awards15_Winner_MIP

 

This information supplied to you is copyrighted and continues to be
protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.   You are free
to use it for your own purposes, including any non commercial research you
are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for
example commercial publication, would require our specific permission, may
involve licensing and the application of a charge

 

 

 

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Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Complaint AB/Robert Earl'.

On 3 October 2016 I made a freedom of information request (the “Request”) to Wirral Borough Council (the “Council”) under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the “FOIA”).

On 20 October 2016 the Council responded to the Request with a de facto refusal to provide me with this information (the “Refusal”).

This Refusal was in breach of Section 1(1) of the FOIA which states:

“(1) Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled—
(a) to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and
(b) if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him.”

There are of course exemptions to Section 1(1), as to which see inter alia Schedule II of the FOIA, but none of these exemptions either applied to the Request, or were said to have applied to the Request by the Council.

The Information Officer's inability to follow the correct FOIA procedure, and her failure to either provide the information requested or state under what exemption the refusal to provide such information was being made, is clearly unacceptable.

For the sake of completeness, I also note here that as part of the Refusal the Information Officer made the following commitment:

“Wirral Council can confirm information will be made available to you as
part of the complaint procedure and that a response to your complaint is
due by 24th October 2016.”

The Information Officer did not clarify what information was “to be made available as part of the complaint procedure”, or to what extent it related to the Request, or to what extent it was to be a full record of the relevant written materials which the Council is required to provide by the FOIA.

In the event, none of the information requested to in the Request was provided in the response to the complaint, which I did receive by 24 October 2016.

Given the forgoing, I am requesting a review of the Information Officer’s refusal to provide the information in accordance with the Request, and that this information be made available to me as soon as possible, and in any event within 20 working days.

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

Yours faithfully,

Mr Earl

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Earl

 

I write in response to your email of 27 October 2016, seeking a review of
the Council’s response to your information request.

 

Your request stated, “I made a complaint to Wirral Borough Council about
the behaviour of one of its officers on 8 August 2016. The reference is
AB/ Robert Earl.  Please let me have any written materials relating to
that complaint, investigation and/or decision.”

 

As reviewing officer, I have revisited your original request and the
response provided by the Council which advised that the information
requested would be made available as part of the complaint procedure being
followed at that time. I can confirm that the majority of the information
we hold in response to your request is correspondence between yourself and
the Council, which you are already in possession of.  However, if further
copies are required, please direct your request to
[1][Wirral Borough Council request email] providing a private email or postal
address.

 

Please note that some information identified within the scope of your
request has been withheld under Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000, being personal data of which you are not the data
subject and therefore exempt from disclosure.   

 

I am satisfied that the disclosure of this information would contravene
the first data protection principle, that personal data shall be processed
fairly and lawfully, and shall not be processed unless at least one of the
conditions in Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 1998 is met. I do not
consider that any of the conditions in Schedule 2 would be met.  In
reaching this view I have taken account of the individual’s reasonable
expectations of what would happen to their personal data, whether
disclosure would be incompatible with the purposes for which it was
obtained and whether disclosure would cause any unnecessary or unjustified
damage or distress to the individual.

 

In this instance the data subject would not have any reasonable
expectation that the details would be made public, having been subject to
the Council’s internal policies and procedures.  I consider that the
disclosure of this information to members of the public would cause an
unwarranted interference with the employees’ rights.

 

I understand that your complaint has now been escalated to stage 3 and is
currently being reviewed by a senior officer.  I am satisfied that all
Council policies and procedures have been followed and appropriate action
taken. 

 

If you remain dissatisfied with the Council’s response to your information
request, you should complain directly to the Information Commissioner who
can be contacted at: [2]https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Lynette Paterson

Senior Information Management Officer

Business Services - Digital

 

Wallasey Town Hall

Brighton Street
Wallasey
Wirral
CH44 8ED 

[3]Tel: 0151 691 8201

[4][Wirral Borough Council request email]

 

 

[5]LGC Awards15_Winner_MIP

 

 

This information supplied to you is copyrighted and continues to be
protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.   You are free
to use it for your own purposes, including any non commercial research you
are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for
example commercial publication, would require our specific permission, may
involve licensing and the application of a charge

 

 

 

 

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References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Wirral Borough Council request email]
2. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
3. file:///tmp/Tel:0151
4. mailto:[Wirral Borough Council request email]