Financial information received by LCC from LDL

Waiting for an internal review by Liverpool City Council of their handling of this request.

Dear Liverpool City Council,

Previous responses to FOI requests have made it clear that LDL does not provide the quarterly monitoring reports it is required to under the terms of the contract
(http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...).

Since LCC is both a client and a shareholder of LDL, and given the clear commitment to open book accounting by both parties, could you please let me know the level of detail on the prices, income, costs, expenses, etc. of the company that LCC receives from LDL, how frequently it receives such information, the positions/job titles of the people to whom it is distributed, and the reasons they receive it. I would expect the response to include any council committees such as Scrutiny Panels, Select Committees, etc. with which the information is shared.

I would also expect the response to include all reports on third party work which LDL undertakes or proposes to undertake, since much of the work involved is performed by LCC-seconded staff, and such contracts have to be specifically approved by the LCC director(s) of LDL, under the terms of the JVA.

I appreciate that the information itself may well be confidential, but its existence, distribution and use are not. A list of reports, together with a brief summary of the kind of information each contains, will suffice.

Yours sincerely

Katie M.

Jawahier Sharif Ali, Liverpool City Council

Dear Ms Katie M,

Acknowledgement of your request for information.
Thank you for your recent correspondence requesting information from the
City Council.  Your request was received in our offices on
24^th October 2011 and, is being processed in accordance with the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.

The information you have requested can be summarised as follows:

- Please let me know the level of detail on the prices, income, costs,
expenses, etc. of the company that LCC receives from LDL, how frequently
it receives such information, the positions/job titles of the people to
whom it is distributed, and the reasons they receive it. I would expect
the response to include any council committees such as Scrutiny Panels,
Select Committees, etc. with which the information is shared.

- I would also expect the response to include all reports on third party
work which LDL undertakes or proposes to undertake, since much of the work
involved is performed by LCC-seconded staff, and such contracts have to be
specifically approved by the LCC director(s) of LDL, under the terms of
the JVA.

If the above summary is incorrect or you wish to change any details, let
me know at the earliest opportunity.

A response will be sent to you as soon as possible and in any case within
the statutory deadline which is 20 working days from the working day after
your request was received.

For your information, the Act defines a number of exemptions which may
prevent the release of information you have requested. There will be an
assessment and, if any of the exemption categories apply, the information
will not be provided to you.  You will be informed if this is the case

Please quote the above reference number in all future communications.

Regards 
Jawahier Sharif Ali (Fatima)
Information Officer
Legal Service
Liverpool City Council
Municipal Buildings
Dale Street,
Liverpool
L2 2DH
Tel: 0151 225 3132
Email: [1][email address].uk 
Website: [2]www.liverpool.gov.uk

P  Please consider the environment before printing this email. Thank you. 

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References

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1. blocked::mailto:[email address]
mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.liverpool.gov.ukp/

Dear Jawahier Sharif Ali,

The response to this request is now overdue.

Yours sincerely,

Katie M.

Dear Jawahier Sharif Ali,

You have not explained the reason for this delay, or given any indication of when a response to my request might be forthcoming.

Might I also ask that you use my real name in subsequent responses. Katie M is a name I use to log in and comment on this site. As my previous Katie M requests have made clear, and as you are aware (your refs FOI/155354 and FOI/172998), my name is Catherine Byrne.

Ali, Jawahier Sharif, Liverpool City Council

Dear Ms Byrne,

I refer to your email below. Firstly let apologise for the confusion
regarding the name and I can assure you it was not intentional. The error
had been corrected and system reflects the name Catherine Byrne.

As for the request, I apologise for the delay getting back to you. We are
still waiting on a final piece of information from the service area to be
able to send the response to you and close the case. We hope we will able
to do this in due time.

Again we apologise for the delay getting back to you and we will keep you
updated with the case progress.

Regards,

Jawahier Sharif Ali (Fatima)

Information Officer

Legal Service

Liverpool City Council

Municipal Buildings

Dale Street,

Liverpool

L2 2DH

Tel: 0151 225 3132

Email: [email address]

Website: www.liverpool.gov.uk

 

P  Please consider the environment before printing this email. Thank you. 

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Katie M. left an annotation ()

Thank you. Regarding the name confusion - this was caused by me, not be you, so no apology needed.

Dear Ms Ali,

This request is still outstanding.
Please be aware that if I receive no response by Friday (2 week delay), I will be making a compliant to the Information Commissioner.

Catherine Byrne

Symm, Kevin, Liverpool City Council

1 Attachment

Please find attached response

 

Regards,

 

Kevin Symm
Senior Information Officer
Legal Services
Liverpool City Council
Municipal Buildings
Dale Street
Liverpool
L2 2DH
TEL: 0151 225 3132
[1][email address]

 

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References

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mailto:[email address]

Mr. Symm,

I refer to your answer to my request, reproduced in full below.

This does not satisfy my enquiry, as it is not the information I asked for in my original request. Could I ask you to conduct an internal review, and produce the information I actually requested.
I asked for an indication of the level of detail on the prices, income, costs, expenses, etc. of LDL that LCC receives, and specified that a list of reports, together with a brief summary of the kind of information each contains would suffice.
It would appear from your response that you think I am referring only to the work done for third party clients. This is not the case. I am asking about the management account- type information that LDL is required to provide to LCC in its capacity as a shareholder of the company. So this refers to the overall operations of LDL, not the third party work only.
I mentioned the third party work merely to point out that I would expect this to be included in reports of the type required under the JVA.
However, since you specifically state that most of the third party work is done by BT-seconded staff, I would ask that you include information to substantiate this assertion - including information on how LDL quantifies and reports to LCC the work done by LCC staff on third party contracts and on the method used to quantify this use of resources (hours worked, employee numbers in WTE etc.).
To avoid further confusion, may I again make clear that I am not asking for the information itself (which I appreciate may well be confidential) - but for a summary or list of the kind of information that is received, pursuant to the JVA.

Sincerely,

Catherine Byrne

Your response:

Freedom of Information Request 170895

Thank you for your recent request received 24 October 2011, and I apologise for the delay in our response. Your request was actioned under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in which you requested the following information:

1. Could you please let me know the level of detail on the prices, income, costs, expenses, etc. of the company that LCC receives from LDL

2. How frequently it receives such information

3. The positions/job titles of the people to whom it is distributed, and the reasons they receive it. I would expect the response to include any council committees such as Scrutiny Panels, Select Committees, etc. with which the information is shared.

4. I would also expect the response to include all reports on third party work which LDL undertakes or proposes to undertake, since much of the work involved is performed by LCC-seconded staff, and such contracts have to be specifically approved by the LCC director(s) of LDL, under the terms of the JVA. I appreciate that the information itself may well be confidential, but its existence, distribution and use are not. A list of reports, together with a brief summary of the kind of information each contains, will suffice.

Response:

1. There is a core contract or investment that is agreed rolling forward on an annual basis

2. As and when required

3. This will depend on the client.

4. LCC receives a sum of money in respect of all third party work. The vast majority is carried out by non-secondees (e.g. BT - LGS staff employed by BT/LDL.

I trust this information satisfies your enquiry.

Yours sincerely

Mr Kevin Symm

Symm, Kevin, Liverpool City Council

Dear Ms Byrne

Please accept this email as formal acknowledgement of your request for an internal review.

This will be conducted and our response communicated to you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Kevin Symm
Senior Information Officer
Legal Services
Liverpool City Council
Municipal Buildings
Dale Street
Liverpool
L2 2DH
TEL: 0151 225 3132
[email address]

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Jenny Griffin left an annotation ()

This response is truly appalling. I hope that our councillors and MPs are reading this drivel.

Dear Mr Symm,

You confirmed on 1 December that there would be an internal review of Liverpool City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Financial information received by LCC from LDL', submitted on 23 October.

The Information Commissioner's guidance is clear that reviews should be completed within 20 days. This period has expired.

The guidance is also clear that the whole process - from submission of the initial request to completion of an internal review - should take no longer than 40 days, so given that the initial response was provided after the normal 20 day deadline, the review should have been expedited.

I would be grateful if you could let me know what progress has been made, and what further delay I can expect.

Cordially,

Catherine Byrne

Symm, Kevin, Liverpool City Council

I am currently out of the office until the 28 December 2011

If your email is urgent, or you are submitting a request for information
under either the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or Data Protection Act
1998 please forward it to: [email address]

Please note, the request will only be considered received when it is sent
to the information requests email address

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Dear Liverpool City Council,

I submitted this request on 23 October 2011, and it was acknowledged by your offices on 24 October (your ref FOI/170895).
After some prompting, I eventually received a response on 1 December. Since the response did not provide the information I was seeking, I immediately requested an internal review, and this was acknowledged by your offices on 1 December.
Having received no further information, I contacted the FOI Officer who had acknowledged my request for a review, Mr. Kevin Symm, on 10 January 2012, and received an automated response informing me that he was on leave until 28 December 2011.
I would point out that this is actually the 12th week since I submitted my request.
Would someone be so kind as to let me know what progress has been made, and when I can expect a response?

Cordially,

Catherine Byrne

Information Requests, Liverpool City Council

Dear Ms Byrne,

 

Thank you for your email below and we apologise for the delay as the
response should have been completed by 11/1/12. Unfortunately due to key
officers being off we have been unable to gather all the relevant
information and we would look to get the response to back to you by next
week.

 

Please accept my apologies for the delay and trust it does not cause any
unnecessary inconvenience.

 

Regards,

 

 

Jawahier Sharif Ali (Fatima)

 

Information Officer

 

Legal Service

 

Liverpool City Council

 

Municipal Buildings

 

Dale Street,

 

Liverpool

 

L2 2DH

 

Tel: 0151 225 3132

 

Email: [email address]

 

Website: www.liverpool.gov.uk

 

 

 

P  Please consider the environment before printing this email. Thank you. 

 

 

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Dear Information Requests,

You informed me on 13 January that I would receive the completed review of your response to my request by the following week. In the 6 weeks that have elapsed since then, I have heard nothing further.
Would you please let me know when the review will be complete, and why it has taken so long.

Cordially

Catherine Byrne

Information Requests, Liverpool City Council

1 Attachment

Dear Ms Byrne,

Thank you for your email. I checked in our system and I confirm that we
sent you our response to your request for case review in 25/01/2012. To
confirm, I am re-sending a copy of our response with this email.

<<170895_Byrne_response_250112.doc>>

Regards,

Jawahier Sharif Ali (Fatima)

Information Officer

Legal Service

Liverpool City Council

Municipal Buildings

Dale Street,

Liverpool

L2 2DH

Tel: 0151 225 3132

Email: [email address]

Website: www.liverpool.gov.uk

 

P  Please consider the environment before printing this email. Thank you. 

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Dear Information Requests,

The information your colleague have provided after your internal review is again not what I asked for.
After the initial response, which did not provide the information I had requested, I clarified exactly what I was seeking when I asked for an internal review on 1 December. The following is an extract from the email to which I refer:

"I asked for an indication of the level of detail on the prices, income, costs, expenses, etc. of LDL that LCC receives, and specified that a list of reports, together with a brief summary of the kind of information each contains would suffice.
I am asking about the management account- type information that LDL is required to provide to LCC in its capacity as a shareholder of the company. So this refers to the overall operations of LDL, not the third party work only. I mentioned the third party work merely to point out that I would expect this to be included in reports of the type required under the JVA.
However, since you specifically state that most of the third party work is done by BT-seconded staff, I would ask that you include information to substantiate this assertion - including information on how LDL quantifies and reports to LCC the work done by LCC staff on third party contracts and on the method used to quantify this use of resources (hours worked, employee numbers in WTE etc.). To avoid further confusion, may I again make clear that I am not asking for the information itself (which I appreciate may well be confidential) - but for a summary or list of the kind of information that is received, pursuant to the JVA."

Your response to my request for an internal review is as follows:

"I can confirm that the Council does hold the information you have requested.

Response:

1. In response to point 1 there is a catalogue on the intranet which lists categories of goods and services the Council can procure it will detail the price for the provision of those goods and service. The categories captured within the catalogue are:
· Access to work equipment – ergonomic accessories
· Audio visual equipment
· Blackberry
· Data sockets
· Laptops
· PC’s
· Peripherals – including keyboards monitors
· Printers
· Remote access solutions
· Software
· Storage e.g. network and USB memory drives
· Tablet PC’s
· Telephony
· Web Services

The Council also receives 2 invoices on a monthly basis from LDL. The first invoice is a high level invoice which will identify in total how much the Council and some 3rd parties may owe for services or goods provided by LDL. LDL also provides a detailed breakdown of what the invoice relates to and which Business Unit is liable for the debt. At this point it is worth noting that some of the monies listed on the invoice will include the expected contractual payments e.g. provision of Human Resources and Payroll, some of the debt will also include goods and service requested by the Council or 3rd parties e.g. supply of a computer. In these instances the relevant Business Unit that has requested the goods or service will have had to have had approval within their own Business Unit to purchase the goods/service and this will require sign off depending on value. LDL will provide the Business Unit with a costing for the provision of that goods/service once this process has been adhered to the Business Unit will raise the relevant order to procure the goods. Therefore the respective Business Units are expected to manage and maintain their own information for any goods or service provided by LDL. The second invoice received from LDL relates to work undertaken as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF). Information regarding the BSF invoices is made up as follows:

· Milestone payments
These are payments within the BSF ICT contract schedule 5 which are a set of payments triggered by deliverables such as ICT systems/ schools going live. These payments appear on a separate invoice which I requested from LDL at the outset just for audit purposes. Come monthly at present but will eventually be once a year in the later stages of the contract.

· Managed Service Payments
This is the charge that each BSF school (there are 8 in total) are charged for the ICT managed service on a monthly basis- this charge is again based on schedule 5 – LCC pay the bill and then recharge the schools

· Ad Hoc Change Business Enquiries
These are payments for work that is done as a result of a change request from a school or LCC after a school is in service- again the payments are made by LCC and recharged to the schools

2. In response to point 2 the invoices from LDL are provided monthly however service areas will receive their information when they have submitted their specific business enquiry to LDL for a particular good or service.

3. The monthly invoices that are received are sent for sign off to the Head of Corporate Finance (Deputy 151 Officer) and the invoice for BSF is sent to the LCC ICT Lead Officer – BSF, and a Principal Finance Officer who has responsibility for the processing
of the invoices. In terms of sign off for the BSF work the milestone and managed service payments are signed off by the LCC ICT Lead Officer for BSF and currently these are received on a monthly basis – the ad hoc business enquiries are signed off by the school and this is then confirmed by the LCC ICT Lead Officer for BSF they are listed on the LCC LDL monthly invoice

4. See responses at points 1-3.

This concludes my response to your request for an internal review. I confirm that the Council failed to provide the information to you as requested in your response of 24 October 2011 there appear to have been two main reasons for this, the first was a misunderstanding of what your request related to and not broadening the search within the Council for the information required for your request. The Council apologies for this misunderstanding and any inconvenience you may have been caused. "

This is all about invoices, i.e., it is information the council receives as a customer of LDL, it contains no mention of any of the information the council will receive as a partner in the joint venture in order to discharge its responsibilities as a shareholder with at least two directors on the board of the company. I specifically requested a list of the kind of information received, as I entirely understand that much of the information itself may be confidential. So the misunderstanding persists.
Given the length of time it has taken to receive this wholly unsatisfactory response, I will now be making a complaint to the Information Commissioner.

Cordially,

Catherine Byrne

Jenny Griffin left an annotation ()

Catherine,

I hope that your ICO complaint is taken seriously. I don't understand why our councillors are turning a blind eye to this, nor why our information officers feel that this is an appropriate response.

Katie M. left an annotation ()

At the prompting of the ICO, LCC made the further response to this request reproduced below (although they posted it in response to another request - http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/de...).
It's a peculiar response. They acknowledge that the initial response failed to address any of the information I had requested, as did the second response. But then they fail to address it in this one.
They seem to think that performance figures are financial information. They are not. Financial information means money, and none of the various performance reports that LDL produces ever mention money.
The only thing they have in common is the fact that both are numbers.
The explanation of the "apparent misunderstanding" is also strange. Ms Glanville appears to think that my assertion that LCC is required to receive financial information is an opinion. It isn't. It's a legal requirement of both the JVA and the Council itself (it has a statutory duty to obtain value for money and to show that they have).
And as for the statement that "the Council will now concentrate solely on what the request relates to".... what a relief, when it actually happens.

Here is the response:

Complaint to Information Commissioners Office – Reference FS50442314

I refer to your complaint to the Information Commissioners Office regarding our response to you of 25 January 2012.

Your complaint to the Information Commissioner was on the basis that you did not consider that the Council had provided the response to your original request of 23 October 2011.

The Council did provide an initial response to you on the 1 December 2011 you then requested a review of the response on the same day and you provided further clarification as to what information you were requesting. Consequently a further detailed response was provided to you on 25 January 2012. As you had exhausted the Council’s appeal process you were directed to the Information Commissioners Office if you remained dissatisfied with your response.

I understand you have submitted a complaint to the Information Commissioner and you have stated the following:

‘Information the council will receive as a partner in the joint Venture. I specifically requested a list of the kind of information received, as I entirely understand that much of the information itself may be confidential ...”

The Information Commissioners Office has asked the Council to review this request further and identify if we have provided the information to your request.

I have undertaken a detailed analysis of this request which originated in October 2011. I would comment as follows. The initial response sent to you on 1 December 2011 failed to address any of the information you had requested consequently the information provided to you on 25 January 2012 was considered the response to the information you had requested. However in light of the further clarification from you via the Information Commissioners Office I can now confirm the following.

The Council does hold the information you have requested.

As part of the Joint Venture agreement Quality of Service reports are produced for each of the specific services delivered by LDL, this information is sent to the individual client officers. The reports will identify performance related information and any exception reporting relating to incidents if performance has not been achieved or if performance has been exceeded. The lead client officer will receive emails relating to bids for third party work. Quarterly Performance reports and Board papers are issued to the Mayor and the Chief Executive.

I would advise as a result of the apparent misunderstanding of what information you had actually requested I have now reviewed our approach when validating any requests for information we receive. On occasions requesters will pass comment or opinion about what information the Council should hold and this would fall outside the remit of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which will only consider actual information held by the Council, in those instances we will disregard any comments or opinions and concentrate solely on what the request relates to. This will be summarised and sent to the requester who can either confirm or accept this is an accurate reflection of their request.

I trust this information has now satisfied your original request for the information you sought and it is disappointing that it has taken so long to rectify. I would assure you that the Council did provide the information they believed you had requested but I would thank you for your patience over this matter.

I can further confirm that the three other complaints you have submitted to the Information Commissioner are being dealt with. I have responded to complaint references FS50440338 and FS50442312 and this is currently being reviewed by the case officer at the Information Commissioners Office. With regard to complaint reference FS50442311 I am currently investigating whether the level of detail you have requested can be provided without exceeding the 18 hour rule as identified under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely

A Glanville
Information Manager