Documents relating to Standards Panel held on 28th June 2016

The request was partially successful.

ScarletPimpernel

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

On 28th June 2016 starting at 6.00pm in Committee Room 2, Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe, CH44 8ED Wirral Council's Standards Panel (comprising Cllr Moira McLaughlin, Cllr Chris Blakeley and Cllr Phil Gilchrist) met to consider a complaint about Cllr Steve Foulkes.

Deputy Monitoring Officer Joe Blott was dealing with this matter and Shirley Hudspeth (Committee and Civic Services Manager) had a role in the meeting too. The papers for the meeting were also circulated to Brian Cummings (Independent Person) and Cllr Jeff Green.

This FOI request is for a copy of:

A) the agenda for the Standards Panel meeting held in Committee Room 2, Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe, CH44 8ED on the 28th June 2016 starting at 6.00pm,

B) the report/s to the Standards Panel meeting in connection with its meeting held on the 28th June 2016,

and

C) the draft minutes of the Standards Panel meeting in connection with its meeting held on the 28th June 2016.

I remind you of your s.16 duty to provide advice and assistance.

I would request that you share these documents with me electronically.

John Brace

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Brace

 

We write further to your recent Freedom of Information request in which
you sought :-

 

A) the agenda for the Standards Panel meeting held in Committee Room 2,
Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe, CH44 8ED on the 28th June
2016 starting at 6.00pm,

B) the report/s to the Standards Panel meeting in connection with its
meeting held on the 28th June 2016,

C) the draft minutes of the Standards Panel meeting in connection with its
meeting held on the 28th June 2016.

 

The information you have requested is intended for future publication once
the right of appeal period expires, being 21 days after the date of the
decision notice (subject to no appeal).  The Council must therefore give
consideration to Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000,
‘information intended for future publication’.

 

Section 22 states that “information is exempt information if:

 

(a) the information is held by the public authority with a view to its
publication, by the authority or any other person, at some future date
(whether determined or not),

(b) the information was already held with a view to such publication at
the time when the request for information was made; and

       it is reasonable in all the circumstances that the information
should be withheld from disclosure until the date referred to in paragraph
(a)”

 

Section 22 is a qualified, class-based exemption and is therefore subject
to a public interest test. The public interest argument for disclosure is
that it reaffirms the importance of public authorities operating in an
open

and transparent manner.  The public interest factors for withholding the
information include that disclosure of the information prior to expiry to
the individual’s right of appeal would be prejudicial  and disclosure

of draft minutes into the public domain would be damaging to the process
of ensuring that minutes are correct, if they were found to contain an
error or omission of detail.

 

It is the Council’s opinion that the public interest factors in favour of
withholding the requested information outweigh those in favour of
disclosure. This information is thereby considered exempt under Section 22
of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

 

The Information Commissioner’s guidance on Section 22 can be found at
[1]this link.

 

You have the right under Section 17 of the Act to ask for an internal
review in respect of this refusal of your request for information. This
should be addressed to: [2][Wirral Borough Council request email]

 

If you are dissatisfied with the result of your internal review, you also
have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner, whose address
is :-

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office,

Wycliffe House,

Water Lane,

Wilmslow,

Cheshire SK9 5AF

[3]www.ico.gov.uk

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Lynette Paterson

Senior Information Management Officer

Records and Information Management

Legal Services

Transformation and Resources

Wallasey Town Hall

Brighton Street
Wallasey
Wirral
CH44 8ED 

[4]Tel: 0151 691 8201

[5][Wirral Borough Council request email]

 

 

[6]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. https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...
2. mailto:[Wirral Borough Council request email]
3. http://www.ico.gov.uk/
4. file:///tmp/Tel:0151
5. mailto:[Wirral Borough Council request email]

ScarletPimpernel left an annotation ()

Typical of Wirral Council, they wouldn't let me in to the public meeting (even the bit held in public which wasn't) and now won't let me see the agenda, reports or draft minutes yet!

ScarletPimpernel

Dear InfoMgr, FinDMT,

Thank you for that response.

This is not an internal review request, but bearing in mind your s.16 duty to provide advice and assistance could you please clarify some of the following points in your response which was a s.17 refusal notice please?

1) You refer to the date of a decision notice and 21 days thereafter.

Has the decision notice already been issued and if so what was the date on it?

2) You refer to the draft minutes being approved at another meeting but don't specify when or of what committee.

Could you please confirm which Committee at Wirral Council does this and explain whether this is a future meeting of the same Standards Panel or its parent Committee the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee?

Thanks,

Yours sincerely,

John Brace

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

Dear Mr Brace

Thank you for your email. I can advise as follows:

1) The decision notice was issued on 5 July 2016 and the period of lodging an appeal will run until 26 July 2016.

2) The reference to draft minutes was in response to your original request which you sought C) the draft minutes of the Standards Panel meeting. I understand however that only the decision notice, not minutes of the meeting, will be issued in this case.

I trust this clarifies your enquiry.

Yours sincerely

Lynette Paterson
Senior Information Management Officer
Transformation and Resources
Legal and Member Services

0151 691 8201

show quoted sections

ScarletPimpernel

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 'Documents relating to Standards Panel held on 28th June 2016'.

You previously refused parts A, B and C of this request referring to section 22 of the FOIA (information intended for future publication) as some of the information requested in A, B and C of this request was at the time planned to be published in a decision notice by the 26th July 2016 assuming that this decision was not appealed to the Standards Appeal Panel.

I am under the impression (rightly or wrongly) that this decision notice has been appealed to the Standards Appeal Panel and will therefore Wirral Council does not plan to publish the decision notice?

I am therefore requesting an internal review as due to the appeal it seems the decision notice will not be published, therefore section 22 as far as I can tell does not apply.

Finally it has also been established that the agenda requested in part A and draft minutes in part C would not form part of the decision notice had it been published.

I am therefore requesting an internal review on the grounds of:

a) there seems no intention at the moment to publish the decision notice (which in any event is only part of the information requested at parts B & C)

b) there seems to be no intention to publish at some point in the future the agenda (part A of this request) or parts B & C of this request that do not relate to this decision notice,

c) The public interest test has changed:

a) it is strengthened in favour of disclosure by a publication date which is now further in the future as the original date was based on no appeal to the decision,

b) the matter is in relation to a Wirral Borough Council councillor who is answerable directly to the people which is a strong argument in favour of disclosure,

c) as the decision has been appealed to the Standards Appeal Panel (a different body to the Standards Panel) there is a further argument in favour of transparency of the reasons behind the decision notice which has been appealed

d) some members of the public were not allowed to attend the public part of the Standards Panel meeting at which this decision was made,

e) there was a standard agenda set for Standards Panel meetings by the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee meeting on the 2nd June 2016 which for this meeting was:

1. Appointment of Chairperson of the Panel

2. Declarations of Interest

3. Opening remarks of the Chairperson

4. Panel to determine whether the exemption to exclude the press and public is to
be maintained. (Parties invited to make representations)

etc and the standard format for Standards Panel meetings can be read here http://democracy.wirral.gov.uk/documents... .

Releasing the agenda would show that the procedures agreed by the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee at its meeting on the 2nd June 2016 were followed in production of the agenda..

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

Yours faithfully,

John Brace

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Brace

 

I write further to your email of 2 August 2016 seeking internal review of
the Council's decision not to disclose information due for future
publication under Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act.

 

The information you requested has now been published and can be found at
the following link :
[1]http://democracy.wirral.gov.uk/ieListDoc...

 

I trust this now satisfies your request for an internal review.  You have
the right to complain to the Information Commissioner if you remain
dissatisfied with the Council's handling of your request at
<[2]https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/>

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Lynette Paterson

Senior Information Management Officer

Records and Information Management

Legal Services

Transformation and Resources

Wallasey Town Hall

Brighton Street

Wallasey

Wirral

CH44 8ED 

Tel: 0151 691 8201

[Wirral Borough Council request email]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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. http://democracy.wirral.gov.uk/ieListDoc...
2. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/