Dear Ministry of Justice,

A letter by HMCTS CEO Peter Handcock to the Justice Select Committee was published here on 22 June 2012: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...

Appendix B of the letter sets out the Complaint Process for ALS Ltd and states: "A complaint should be logged directly onto the portal where it is visible against the booking made".

In practice, only (some) employees of HMCTS have access to the ALS Ltd portal.

My request for information is as follows:
1) What is the complaint process for the following court users to complain about the performance of ALS Ltd or its workers:
a) Judges and Magistrates
b) Prosecuting counsel
c) Defence counsel
d) Witness service
e) Probation service
f) Prison service
g) Defendants
h) Witnesses
i) Members of the general public
2) Where, when, and how has the information for the benefit of the parties listed under a) to i) been published and publicised?

Yours faithfully,

M Lee

Dear Ministry of Justice,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Ministry of Justice's handling of my FOI request 'Interpreter complaints procedure for people not employed by HMCTS'.

I made four separate requests for information on 16, 20, 21 and 22 August 2012.

In response to the above FOI request, the MoJ informed me on 19 September 2012: “We have aggregated your multiple requests that were made separately and a
single response to all of them was sent on 14 September.”

No such response was in fact sent by the MoJ on 14 September. No other correspondence was received from the MoJ before chasing the MoJ for a response on 19 September 2012.

The response allegedly sent on 14 September and copied to me again on 19 September refused to provide the information. This was on the basis that my requests, aggregated by the MoJ, would exceed the cost limit.

The MoJ wrote: “I can confirm that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) holds some of the information you have requested but in this case, I will not be providing you with these details as it would exceed the cost limit set out in section 12(1) of the FoIA.”

The response did not inform me in respect of which request(s) the MoJ does hold information and in respect of which request(s) the MoJ does not hold information.

The information I requested was:
(16 Aug, ref 77719): Details of the ALS Ltd complaints procedure, associated procedures and information on how it was publicised for the benefit of court users.
(20 Aug, ref 77793): Management data as listed on page 98 of the Framework Agreement and a date for publication of the statistics pertaining to Quarter 2 of the ALS Ltd contract.
(21 Aug): Details of the ALS Ltd complaints procedure for people not employed by H.M.C.T.S. and information on how it was publicised for the benefit of court users.
(22 Aug): A copy of the report as intended in article 43 of Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts relating to the Language Services Framework Agreement (OJEU Notices: 2010/S 163-251285 and 2010 287680).

I am requesting an internal review for the following reasons:
1) The MoJ’s decision to aggregate my requests into a single request is not rational. Whereas they were made over a period of one week and all are broadly related to the Ministry of Justice Framework Agreement with ALS Ltd/Capita, each request for information is distinct and discrete. Two are loosely related to the same topic, namely the complaints procedure.
2) The information I requested is to be found in documents that, according to the terms of the MoJ’s own contract, are (or ought to be) in existence and held by the MoJ.
3) Even if it were rational to aggregate these four requests, in a properly run administration the cost of locating the requested information should not exceed the cost limit referred to in the refusal notice. I suggest the time required has been exaggerated.
4) Given that the contract in question is currently subject to two parliamentary inquiries, by the Public Accounts Committee and the Justice Committee, it is in the public interest that the requested information be provided.
5) In view of the large volume of requests on the same topic that were refused by the Ministry on the flimsiest of pretexts, I believe that the Ministry of Justice does not want to release the information because the contents is damaging to it. Similarly, despite the contractual provision that the contractor will provide information in answer to Parliamentary Questions, the Ministry has replied to numerous PQs that the requested information was not held.
6) It is possible that the MoJ does not possess certain information that its contractor was contractually obliged to provide, and is embarrassed to admit to this. If this is the case then this, too, is in the public interest.

I now wish to turn to each of the requests I made.

16 Aug, ref 77719): Details of the ALS Ltd complaints procedure, associated procedures and information on how it was publicised for the benefit of court users.

This request arose out of information published elsewhere by the Ministry of Justice (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...) that appeared to be incomplete.

In its refusal notice, the MoJ did not inform me that some of the information I requested was already in the public domain. It did not confirm or deny holding the remaining information I requested, but my assumption is that if such information exists, it will be held by the MoJ. My further assumption is that it would be easily accessed by information officers.

The information requested is in the public interest; it is important to know whether or not the complaints procedure was publicised for the benefit of court users, as it appears there is no complaints procedure in place for persons other than the MoJ’s own staff.

(21 Aug): Details of the ALS Ltd complaints procedure for people not employed by H.M.C.T.S. and information on how it was publicised for the benefit of court users.

Based on the information that was in the public domain and what it expressly did not cover, I made a subsequent request for information -related this time- asking for details of the ALS Ltd complaints procedure for people not employed by H.M.C.T.S. and information on how it was publicised for the benefit of court users.

In its refusal notice, the MoJ did not confirm or deny holding the information I requested, but my assumption is that if such information exists, it will be held by the MoJ. My further assumption is that it would be easily accessed by information officers.

Clearly, the existence or non-existence of a mechanism for people who are not HMCTS employees to complain about the quality of court interpreters provided by the state is a matter of public interest.

(20 Aug, ref 77793): Management data as listed on page 98 of the Framework Agreement and a date for publication of the statistics pertaining to Quarter 2 of the ALS Ltd contract.

This request was twofold. On the one hand it asked for data that was missing from the published Q1 statistics yet the existence of which is clearly evidenced in the terms of the Framework Contract (p.98).

On the other hand, I asked, almost exactly three months after the Q1 figures were published, when the equivalent figures for Q2 would be published.

In its refusal notice, the MoJ did not confirm or deny holding the information I requested, but my assumption is that if such information exists, it will be held by the MoJ. My further assumption is that it would be easily accessed by information officers.

Moreover, the MoJ should have been in a position to inform me when the next set of statistics would be published, but it did not provide this information.

In the event, statistics for the months April to August have been published (at http://www.justice.gov.uk/statistics/cou...) in the interim, on 18 October 2012, so the second part of my request can be disregarded.

Nonetheless, the published information once again constitutes around one tenth of the information listed on page 98 of the Framework Agreement. In the public interest, the performance data, which was looked into by the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee, and the Justice Committee, should be published in full.

(22 Aug): A copy of the report as intended in article 43 of Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts relating to the Language Services Framework Agreement (OJEU Notices: 2010/S 163-251285 and 2010 287680).

This request concerns the procurement process that led to the award of the framework agreement with ALS. The requested report serves to detail the decisions taken at different stages of the procurement process, such as the reasons for rejecting abnormally low bids and the reasons for deciding which bidders will remain.

It is to be assumed that, according to good practise, the MoJ procurement team drew up a report of this nature. Its publication, if it exists, will shed light on the decisions made by the MoJ’s officials that were investigated by the National Audit Office and that are currently subject to scrutiny by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. Hence, it, too, contains information that should be published in the public interest. In its refusal notice, the MoJ did not confirm or deny holding the information I requested.

In view of the UK MoJ’s evident reluctance to provide me with the report, I have requested the same information of the EU Directorate-General for Internal Market and Services.

I hereby request that each of the four requests I made is subject to an internal review. I look forward to hearing from you regarding the outcome of the four individual reviews within the statutory time limit of 20 days.

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

Yours faithfully,

M Lee