functions council

The request was partially successful.

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear Sir or Madam,

Sirs

I would like to know the average proportion of time the elected representatives of your authority spend as part of their duties for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 on their main activities. The activities that form their duties (employment) as an elected representative are:

1 directly resolving complaints against the executive (Council Staff) of the Council by residents;
2 sitting on committee's;
3 acting for the political parties that they represent and/or ceremonial duties (i.e. all time not spent on sitting on a Committee or resolving a complaint against the executive);

The total time spent by an elected representative for a Council on these three activities should be 100 per cent of the time they spend 'working for a Council' as an elected representative.

I would additionally like to know how much in total was paid to local councillors to meet all their duties (including expenses) for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 by your authority, and how many elected representatives are (and were) represented on your authority for these years.

I would also like to know how many Complaints in total were submitted to your Council in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 for each year. I would further like to know how many of these complaints were formally considered by an elected representative for each of these years.

I would further like to know how many complaints against the Executive (Council staff) led to the elected representatives formally identifying that the Executive had acted wrongly for the years 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008, and how many of these formal determinations by the elected representatives identify that there was no wrong-doing by the Executive. How many staff employed by your authority in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 ceased to be employed by your authority as a direct result of a complaint against the Executive, and the Councillors identifying this to be the case.

I would further like to know how much money the Council has paid to a complainant (i.e. victim of a Council's wrongdoing) through its own complaints system (i.e. excluding any intervention by the Local Government Ombudsman, Valuation Tribunal or similar body) in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008.

I would like to know how much money either in the form of local settlement or additional formal finding of maladministration causing injustice the Local Government Ombudsman has recommended that your Council pay in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 (for each year) and if the Local Government Ombudsman's recommendations have been met in full (including any non-financial recommendations for each year)). Please detail any recommendation that has not been met in full and provide a copy of the Elected representatives decision. Please additionally identify if these costs were met directly by Council Tax Payers or the Council's insurers (excluding self insurance by a Council)

Finally, please provide details of the financial cost of administering all your complaints systems (including FoI and DP) by the Executive for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 and the number of staff employed in administering complaints and resolving these (Full time equivalent staffing levels). Please also provide details of your total administrative costs for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 and the total number of staff employed by your authority, as well as any pay increase (including increments) made to the Council's Chief Executive (Head of Paid Service) in pounds sterling for each of these years. Please additionally identify if the Chief Executives wages included performance related payments.

If you do not have this reasonably basic management information related to complaints and/or identify that the costs of accessing the information requested will be more than £450 please state this and identify that your Authority does not have either a functioning or accountable complaints system, and does not maintain any basic management information related to this issue.

If you have a complaints system not fit for purpose please identify which political party currently controls your Council, and if this political party has appointed the current Electoral Registration and Returning Officer through its control of the Council (with date of their formal appointment). Please name the current Electoral Registration and Returning Officer, and identify if they are also Head of Paid Service, and Clerk to your Authority. Please additionally provide any documentation maintained by your Local Authorities Head of Paid Service identifying that they personally do not believe it to be appropriate for your Council to have a complaints system that is fit for purpose. This documentation should be in existence due to the provisions of s4 of the Local Government Act 1989.

Yours faithfully

Stuart HARDWICKE CARRUTHERS

Performance, Policy and Information, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

Thank you for your email. I have forwarded it to the relevant person for action.

Regards

Bev

Beverley Haywood
Management Assistant [PA to Ian Ash]
Commissioning Division
Tel: 0121 704 6666
Fax: 0121 704 8311
email: [email address]

www.solihull.gov.uk

show quoted sections

Summerill, Joanne (Strategic Services, Corp Performance Policy & Info - Solihull MBC), Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Freedom of Information request

Thank you for your request for information about the functions of the Council, which we received on 24 August 2008.

I note that you are asking for the following information.

* I would like to know the average proportion of time the elected representatives of your authority spend as part of their duties for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 on their main activities. The activities that form their duties (employment) as an elected representative are:

1. directly resolving complaints against the executive (Council Staff) of the Council by residents;
2. sitting on committees;
3. acting for the political parties that they represent and/or ceremonial duties (i.e. all time not spent on sitting on a Committee or resolving a complaint against the executive);

* I would additionally like to know how much in total was paid to local councillors to meet all their duties (including expenses) for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 by your authority.

* How many elected representatives are (and were) represented on your authority for these years.

* I would also like to know how many Complaints in total were submitted to your Council in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 for each year. I would further like to know how many of these complaints were formally considered by an elected representative for each of these years.

* I would further like to know how many complaints against the Executive (Council staff) led to the elected representatives formally identifying that the Executive had acted wrongly for the years 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008, and how many of these formal determinations by the elected representatives identify that there was no wrong-doing by the Executive. How many staff employed by your authority in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 ceased to be employed by your authority as a direct result of a complaint against the Executive, and the Councillors identifying this to be the case.

* I would further like to know how much money the Council has paid to a complainant (i.e. victim of a Council's wrongdoing) through its own complaints system (i.e. excluding any intervention by the Local Government Ombudsman, Valuation Tribunal or similar body) in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008.

* I would like to know how much money either in the form of local settlement or additional formal finding of maladministration causing injustice the Local Government Ombudsman has recommended that your Council pay in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 (for each year) and if the Local Government Ombudsman's recommendations have been met in full (including any non-financial recommendations for each year)). Please detail any recommendation that has not been met in full and provide a copy of the Elected representatives decision. Please additionally identify if these costs were met directly by Council Tax Payers or the Council's insurers (excluding self insurance by a Council)

* Finally, please provide details of the financial cost of administering all your complaints systems (including FoI and DP) by the Executive for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 and the number of staff employed in administering complaints and resolving these (Full time equivalent staffing levels).

* Please also provide details of your total administrative costs for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008

* The total number of staff employed by your authority,

* Any pay increase (including increments) made to the Council's Chief Executive (Head of Paid Service) in pounds sterling for each of these years. Please additionally identify if the Chief Executive's wages included performance related payments.

* If you do not have this reasonably basic management information related to complaints and/or identify that the costs of accessing the information requested will be more than £450 please state this and identify that your Authority does not have either a functioning or accountable complaints system, and does not maintain any basic management information related to this issue.

* If you have a complaints system not fit for purpose please identify which political party currently controls your Council, and if this political party has appointed the current Electoral Registration and Returning Officer through its control of the Council (with date of their formal appointment). Please name the current Electoral Registration and Returning Officer, and identify if they are also Head of Paid Service, and Clerk to your Authority.

* Please additionally provide any documentation maintained by your Local Authorities Head of Paid Service identifying that they personally do not believe it to be appropriate for your Council to have a complaints system that is fit for purpose. This documentation should be in existence due to the provisions of s4 of the Local Government Act 1989.

I am dealing with your request under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). In line with statutory deadlines I will try to supply you with the information sought by no later than 23 September 2008.

In some circumstances a request may be subject to a) the payment of a fee, or b) an exemption may apply preventing disclosure of the information. If this is the case with your request, I will let you know. Meanwhile, if you have any further queries about this email, please do not hesitate to contact me or email [Solihull Borough Council request email].

Further advice on the FOIA is available from The Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, telephone: 01625 545 700, website: http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely

Joanne Summerill
Information Governance Assistant
Commissioning Division
Tel 0121 704 6169
Fax 0121 704 8311
Email [email address]
Website http://www.solihull.gov.uk

show quoted sections

Summerill, Joanne (Strategic Services - Solihull MBC), Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

6 Attachments

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Freedom of Information request - Ref 1052

I am writing further to your request for information about the functions
of the Council, which we received on 24 August 2008.

Please find our responses to your questions below.

I would like to know the average proportion of time the elected
representatives of your authority spend as part of their duties for
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 on their main activities. The
activities that form their duties (employment) as an elected
representative are:

1 directly resolving complaints against the executive (Council Staff) of
the Council by residents;

2 sitting on committees;

3 acting for the political parties that they represent and/or ceremonial
duties (i.e. all time not spent on sitting on a Committee or resolving a
complaint against the executive);

Elected members do not resolve complaints made by residents about council
staff. Additionally, we do not keep records of the amount of time spent by
elected members on their official council duties. It may be helpful to
clarify that they are not in the `employment' of the authority; they are
elected representatives working on a voluntary basis, for which they
receive an allowance and are able to claim certain expenses.

Although I am unable to supply any information about elected members of
Solihull Council it might be useful to give you the results of a national
survey by the Local Government Analysis and Research (LGAR) on Members'
Allowances and Members' workloads (23 March 2007). This reported that,
based on a national survey of local authority members carried out in 2006,
those holding a position of leading responsibility spent on average 25.1
hours per week, compared to 18.1 hours for those not holding a senior
position. There was no breakdown of how elected members divide their time
between their various types of activity and this will vary depending on
the specific role of each elected member.

I would additionally like to know how much in total was paid to local
councillors to meet all their duties (including expenses) for 2005/2006,
2006/2007 and 2007/2008 by your authority,

I attach the report on allowances claimed for 2005-06. Allowances claimed
for 2006-07 and 2007-08 are on the Council's website at the following
links.

2006/07

[1]http://www.solihull.gov.uk/Attachments/a...

2007/08

[2]http://www.solihull.gov.uk/Attachments/a...

These reports show how much Basic and Special Responsibility Allowance was
paid to each member and there is also a column showing their travelling
expenses claimed. The totals paid each year can be arrived at by adding up
each of the columns.

How many elected representatives are (and were) represented on your
authority for these years.

There are 51 elected members. This figure does not change.

I would also like to know how many Complaints in total were submitted to
your Council in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 for each year. I would
further like to know how many of these complaints were formally considered
by an elected representative for each of these years.

Please see the attachments about complaints.

The only involvement of elected members would be on any statutory review
panels for statutory complaints. To identify this would mean reviewing
every statutory complaint that reached Stage 3 of the Council's complaints
procedure. We estimate that this would take one day of work. This part of
your request is being refused on cost grounds, the details of which are
included at the bottom of this email.

I would further like to know how many complaints against the Executive
(Council staff) led to the elected representatives formally identifying
that the Executive had acted wrongly for the years 2005/2006, 2006/2007
and 2007/2008, and how many of these formal determinations by the elected
representatives identify that there was no wrong-doing by the Executive.
How many staff employed by your authority in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and
2007/2008 ceased to be employed by your authority as a direct result of a
complaint against the Executive, and the Councillors identifying this to
be the case.

To identify this information we would have to go through every complaint
individually. We estimate that this would take 4 to 5 days. As previously
mentioned, elected members are not involved in corporate complaints and
are only involved at Stage 3 of statutory complaints process. This part
of your request is being refused on cost grounds, the details of which are
included at the bottom of this email.

I would further like to know how much money the Council has paid to a
complainant (i.e. victim of a Council's wrongdoing) through its own
complaints system (i.e. excluding any intervention by the Local Government
Ombudsman, Valuation Tribunal or similar body) in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and
2007/2008.

This is not recorded on our system. To identify how much money was paid
we would have to go through every complaint individually. We estimate
that going through all complaints would take 4 to 5 days. This part of
your request is being refused on cost grounds, the details of which are
included at the bottom of this email.

I would like to know how much money either in the form of local settlement
or additional formal finding of maladministration causing injustice the
Local Government Ombudsman has recommended that your Council pay in
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 (for each year) and if the Local
Government Ombudsman's recommendations have been met in full (including
any non-financial recommendations for each year)). Please detail any
recommendation that has not been met in full and provide a copy of the
Elected representatives decision. Please additionally identify if these
costs were met directly by Council Tax Payers or the Council's insurers
(excluding self insurance by a Council).

This type of information is not recorded on our system. To identify how
much money was paid in local settlements we would have to go through every
finding from the Ombudsman. However I can confirm there have been no
findings of maladministration causing injustice by the Local Government
Ombudsman in 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08 so we will not have been ordered
to pay anything relating to this.

Finally, please provide details of the financial cost of administering all
your complaints systems (including FoI and DP) by the Executive for
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 and the number of staff employed in
administering complaints and resolving these (Full time equivalent
staffing levels).

The costs of administering FOI and DP complaints are not identified,
monitored or recorded. There are costs recorded for Statutory Complaints
and Corporate complaints for 2007/08, as follows.

Statutory Complaints £6,632

Corporate Complaints £2,173

We did not keep records of expenditure before this.

The number of staff in the Complaints Team was originally two full-time
employees, the Complaints Manager and the Senior Complaints Officer. They
have now been joined by one full-time temporary member of staff.

Please also provide details of your total administrative costs for
2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008

The Council does not record a total for administrative costs.

The Council reports its income and expenditure, but does so on the basis
of service areas.

The total number of staff employed by your authority,

The number of Full Time Equivalents (not individual members of staff)
employed by our authority is as follows:

July 06 - 5225

July 07 - 5215

July 08 - 5229

Any pay increase (including increments) made to the Council's Chief
Executive (Head of Paid Service) in pounds sterling for each of these
years. Please additionally identify if the Chief Executive's wages
included performance related payments.

I am unable to supply figures for pay increases (including increments) in
pounds sterling to the Chief Executive. We believe that disclosing the
exact increment that the Chief Executive Officer was on at any moment in
time would be a breach of the first principle of the Data Protection Act.
In not disclosing this information the Council is relying upon exemption -
section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act. This exemption covers
personal information and it applies where disclosure would breach any of
the principles of the Data Protection Act.

However I am able to confirm that in 2005/06 the Chief Executive received
a cost of living rise of 2.95%, in 2006/07 2.95% and in 2007/08 2.475%.
These pay increases for cost of living were the same as those awarded to
all Council employees.

The Council does not operate a performance system in the sense of paying
performance-related bonuses to the Chief Executive, however, there is a
performance

related pay progression scheme that applies to all Council employees.

If you do not have this reasonably basic management information related to
complaints and/or identify that the costs of accessing the information
requested will be more than £450 please state this and identify that your
Authority does not have either a functioning or accountable complaints
system, and does not maintain any basic management information related to
this issue.

We do have management information related to complaints. However we do
not record the level of detail that you are requesting.

Finding, retrieving and preparing information takes employees' time and
consequently there are associated costs. If based upon an hourly rate of
£25 the cost exceeds the `appropriate limit' then the Council can refuse
to fulfil the request. For Local Authorities the `appropriate limit' is
set at £450. Both of these figures are determined by the government. As
explained earlier, we estimate that it would take several days of work to
find some of the information you are requesting. Therefore this would
exceed the appropriate limit. In refusing part of your request the
Council is relying upon section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 which provides an exemption in so far as the Council is not obliged
to comply with a request for information if the Council estimates that the
cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

If you wish to re-submit a narrowed down request for the information that
we have not provided we will be happy to consider it and may be able to
provide some information.

However, the Council does have various functioning and accountable
complaints system. Information about these is available on the Council's
website at the following link:
[3]http://www.solihull.gov.uk/democracy/com...

If you have a complaints system not fit for purpose please identify which
political party currently controls your Council, and if this political
party has appointed the current Electoral Registration and Returning
Officer through its control of the Council (with date of their formal
appointment). Please name the current Electoral Registration and Returning
Officer, and identify if they are also Head of Paid Service, and Clerk to
your Authority.

Not applicable, as we believe that we do have a complaints system and
procedure that is fit for purpose.

Please additionally provide any documentation maintained by your Local
Authorities Head of Paid Service identifying that they personally do not
believe it to be appropriate for your Council to have a complaints system
that is fit for purpose. This documentation should be in existence due to
the provisions of s4 of the Local Government Act 1989.

Not applicable, as we believe that we do have a complaints system and
procedure that is fit for purpose.

I hope that the information that I have provided is to your satisfaction.
If you are unhappy with the service that you have received in relation to
your request and wish to make a complaint or request a review of our
decision you should write to Mr Andrew Shipway, Corporate Information
Governance Manager, PO Box 18, Council House, Solihull, West Midlands B91
9QS or email [4][Solihull Borough Council request email] by 21 October 2008. I enclose a
copy of the Complaints and Appeals procedure that gives further details.

If you are not content with the outcome of your review or complaint, you
may apply directly to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for a
decision. Generally the ICO cannot make a decision until you have
exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Council. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone: 01625 545 700, website:
[5]http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

Should you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact
me.

Yours sincerely

Joanne Summerill

Information Governance Assistant

Commissioning Division

Tel 0121 704 6169

Fax 0121 704 8311

Email [6][email address]

Website [7]http://www.solihull.gov.uk

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. http://www.solihull.gov.uk/Attachments/a...
2. http://www.solihull.gov.uk/Attachments/a...
3. http://www.solihull.gov.uk/democracy/com...
4. mailto:[Solihull Borough Council request email]
5. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/
6. mailto:[email address]
7. http://www.solihull.gov.uk/