invoices for councillors' taxi expenses from Eyecab Limited (Passenger Transport Contract) for 2014/15 financial year
Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,
Happy New Year to the FOI team at Wirral Council.
During the 2014/15 audit I requested the contract relating to councillors' taxi expenses paid to a company called Eyecab Limited. I received this contract and I quote from it in this request in order to try and be helpful. The contract started on the 1st September 2014 and is known as the Passenger Transport Contract.
"2.3 LOT 4 Ad Hoc Journeys for Wirral Councillors by Taxi
....
2.3.8 Invoicing
Invoices should be submitted once a month for all journeys undertaken by Councillors for official business only. There will be no payment in advance for journeys. The invoice should contain the following information
• Journey collection and arrival destinations
• Date and time of journey
• Name of the Councillor ordering the journey
Invoices will be paid at the price agreed between Wirral Council and the Contractor at the time of award of contract. If an overcharge is identified on an invoice a credit note will be required from the Contractor or a deduction for the amount owed clearly identified on the following invoice.
Invoices should be forwarded to:-
Carl Thompson
Legal and Member Services
Wallasey Town Hall
Brighton Street
CH44 8ED"
Could you please provide in response to this request:
i) a copy of the invoices from the following months received from Eyecab Limited to Wirral Council for Lot 4 (Ad Hoc Journeys for Wirral Councillors by Taxi) for September 2014, October 2014, November 2014, December 2014, January 2015, February 2015 and March 2015 and any credit notes (if they exist) relating to the same invoices
and
ii) this contract was originally from 1/9/14 to 31/8/15 but had an option in it to extend the contract for a further year. Please could you state (yes/no) if the option to extend the contract for a further year (to August 2016) was exercised by Wirral Council with respect to Lot 4 (Ad Hoc Journeys for Wirral Councillors by Taxi).
I remind you of your section 16 duty to provide advice and assistance.
In order to prevent nine months of arguing over this one (as has happened in the past), I would like to take this opportunity to draw you to the following cases that have a bearing on this matter and being existing case law you should consider when considering this request.
I realise I shouldn't have to remind you, but as it's come up in a decision notice before, consideration of whether exemptions apply to the information requested do not count towards the 18.5 hour limit.
I draw your attention to the recent Court of Appeal judgement (which was about a FOI request about invoices relating to expenses claimed by MPs) and was an appeal by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
[2015] EWCA Civ 388, [2015] 1 WLR 2879, [2015] WLR 2, [2015] WLR(D) 194
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/... .
I quote from part 3:
"Although the direct concern of the appeal is with three specific invoices or receipts (I shall refer to them simply as invoices), it is a test case and has important implications for IPSA and, no doubt, for other public authorities ."
Yours faithfully,
John Brace
Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,
Just a follow up to my original request.
I stated in my original request that the name of the company was Eyecab Limited, it is in fact Eye Cab Limited. I just thought I'd better clear that up in case it caused any confusion.
Yours faithfully,
John Brace
Dear Mr Brace,
Wirral Council thanks you for your request, please see response below and
also attachments.
Question
i)a copy of the invoices from the following months received from Eyecab
Limited to Wirral Council for Lot 4 (Ad Hoc Journeys for Wirral
Councillors by Taxi) for September 2014, October 2014, November 2014,
December 2014, January 2015, February 2015 and March 2015 and any credit
notes (if they exist) relating to the same invoices
Response:
The Council considers that the exemption contained in [1]Section 40 (2) of
FOIA, applies to part of this requested information, that is Junior
officer names, independent panel members and also names and information
relating to Eye Cab Limited employees. The exemption can be relied upon
as you are asking for information which is personal data, in respect of
which you are not the data subject. We consider that the disclosure of
requested information would contravene the the second data protection
principle. This is because personal data shall be obtained only for one
or more specified and lawful purpose and shall not be further processed in
any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes; and shall not
be processed unless at least one of the conditions in [2]Schedule 2 of the
Data Protection Act 1998 is met. We consider that the individuals named
in these invoices would have a legitimate expectation that their personal
data would not be further processed. We can therefore provide to you
redacted invoices representing all the LOT 4 invoices for the period
requested and can confirm that there are no credit notes relating to these
invoices.
You have the right under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
to ask for an internal review of the refusal to supply some of the
information requested. Please direct any request for an internal review
to [3][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 [4]www.ico.gov.uk
Question
ii) This contract was originally from 1/9/14 to 31/8/15 but had an option
in it to extend the contract for a further year. Please could you state
(yes/no) if the option to extend the contract for a further year (to
August 2016) was exercised by Wirral Council with respect to Lot 4 (Ad Hoc
Journeys for Wirral Councillors by Taxi).
Response:
Yes, the option to extend was taken up by the council.
We trust that you find this information of assistance
Yours sincerely,
Tracy O'Hare
Information Management
Transformation and Resources
Wirral Council
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.
[5]cid:image001.jpg@01D15AB3.293610F0
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 'invoices for councillors' taxi expenses from Eye Cab Limited (Passenger Transport Contract) for 2014/15 financial year'.
Thank you for responding to this FOI request.
I quote from the contract (Passenger Transport Contract (LOT 4) with Eye Cab Limited) that relates to these invoices:
"2.3.8 Invoicing
Invoices should be submitted once a month for all journeys undertaken by Councillors for official business only. There will be no payment in advance for journeys. The invoice should contain the following information
• Journey collection and arrival destinations
• Date and time of journey
• Name of the Councillor ordering the journey"
The invoices supplied do not include details of journey collection and arrival destinations, nor the times of journeys. This information is not in the classes of information you have removed from the invoices (Junior officer names, independent panel members and also names and information relating to Eye Cab Limited employees).
Therefore the reason for this internal review is that there appear to be pages to these invoices which are missing and have not been supplied.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...
Yours faithfully,
John Brace
Dear Mr Brace,
Thank you for your request for an Internal review of the Council’s
response to your enquiry.
As the reviewing officer I have revisited your enquiry and have noted your
comments
“The invoices supplied do not include details of journey collection and
arrival destinations, nor the times of journeys. This information is not
in the classes of information you have removed from the invoices (Junior
officer names, independent panel members and also names and information
relating to Eye Cab Limited employees). Therefore the reason for this
internal review is that there appear to be pages to these invoices which
are missing and have not been supplied.”
I can confirm there are no further pages or details appended to these
invoices previously supplied to you. There is, therefore, no further
recorded information to provide in regard to the LOT 4 invoices for the
period requested.
If you are dissatisfied with the result of your internal review you have
the right to complain to the Information Commissioner, who can be reached
using the details on their website at
[1]https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.
Yours sincerely,
Andy Henderson
Information Management Officer
Information Management
Legal & Member Services
Transformation & Resources Department
Wallasey Town Hall
Brighton Street
Wallasey
Wirral
CH44 8ED
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.
Please do not add this email address to any mailing lists.
[2]cid:image002.jpg@01D066DD.D7571B40
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Michael Edwards left an annotation ()
Evening John,
Coincidence maybe but eye cab ltd director Richard Humphreys also director of Burrell court ltd, fellow director Mr John McLaughlin family member of cllr McLaughlin??...