Killams: SCC Officer conflict of interest?

The request was partially successful.

Dear Somerset County Council,

Dear Taunton Deane Borough Council,

Summerfields were the gaining developer for the controversial Killams application within the protected Vivary Green Wedge outside the urban boundary).

Summerfields paid for a 2-year consultancy (July 2010 to March 2012) by a PR company called Consensus:

http://www1.tauntondeane.gov.uk/TDBCSite...

In October 2011 Consensus (on behalf of Summerfields) held an away day workshop at a local hotel euphemistically called "Killams and Mountfield Critiquing Panel".

Note: There is no listed attendance by local Ward Councillors or the high profile local South Road & Area Residents Association.

The purpose of the workshop was to amend the failed 2010 planning application to have a "revised and honed" scheme in order to inform a subsequent planning application by the gaining developer.

The published attendee list shows publicly salaried Somerset County Council (SCC) Officers attending including Reggie Tricker (Highways) and David Williams (Cycling Officer).

a) Please confirm list of SCC Officers who attended (name & role);

b) Did the organiser or the gaining developer sponsor pay for the Officer time involved in this "revising and honing" exercise?

c) What council or professional rules, standing orders, custom & practice etc govern the inherent conflicts of interest in Council Officers attending events that support a gaining developer in obtaining planning permission on a controversial site within a protected green wedge i.e. providing "free consultancy" at public expense?

d) Do Council Officers have to seek permission to attend events sponsored by a gaining developer? If so, please provide a copy of the authorisation showing the name and role of the authoring person[s].

e) Where do Council Officers declare any inherent conflicts of interest as above? Please provide a copy of any such declarations?

f) Did any of the attending Officers work on the Killasm planning application (heard in April 2013)?

g) Did any Councillors attend? If so, please list their Ward & name.

Yours faithfully,

Dave Orr

Somerset Direct - FOI, Somerset Council

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Information Request, Somerset Council

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Somerset Direct Reference: 2817277

Internal Reference: 140449

Date request received: 10/04/2014

Date response due: 13/05/2014

 

Dear Mr Orr,

 

Thank you for your request for information of which we are dealing with
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  We are currently dealing with
your request and will be in touch shortly concerning disclosure of the
information you have requested.

 

The legislation obliges us to provide you with this information within 20
working days, so we will endeavour to send our response to you by 13^th
May 2014.

 

In the meantime if you have any further queries please contact me quoting
the reference numbers above.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Information Request Administrator

Communications Team

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Somerset County Council, Post Point: PP B3E 2, County Hall, Taunton, TA1
4DY

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Dear Information Request,

This FOI has flagged as overdue.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Dear Somerset County Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Somerset County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Killams: SCC Officer conflict of interest?'.

This FOI has been serially ignored and despite a polite reminder has not been answered.

Please address an answer and the delay through an Internal Review.

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

Yours faithfully,

Dave Orr

Somerset Direct - FOI, Somerset Council

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Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

 

Request ref - 2817277 / 140449

 

Thank you for your email of 12^th June 2014

 

I will be conducting the Internal Review of your request and expect to
contact you within 20 working days

 

Regards

 

Peter Grogan

Information Governance Manager

B2 East County Hall

TAUNTON

TA1 4DY

 

01823357175

07500882481

 

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Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

4 Attachments

Dear Mr Orr

 

Please find attached the Internal Review concerning this request and other
attachments pertaining to the request

 

Owing to the fact that this IR was carried out on a request to which the
Authority had not replied, for which I apologise, you may wish to use a
second IR to clarify any responses prior to a direct approach to the ICO.
I leave that to your discretion.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

Peter Grogan

Information Governance Manager

B2 East County Hall

TAUNTON

TA1 4DY

 

01823357175

07500882481

 

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email.

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Dear Peter Grogan,

Re the SCC-published Internal Review response:

"Despite your assertion that Reggie Tricker (Highways) and David Williams (Cycling) attended the meeting, I am informed that there is no file note of this meeting and therefore no confirmation that Mr Tricker attended. I am also informed that Mr Williams was not an SCC Council Officer"

=====================================================

Can I clarify that the information about attendees was supplied by the PR Company Consensus (who hosted the event on behalf of the gaining developer Summerfields.

It is NOT "my assertion", it is a matter of public record submitted as a consultation document to the TDBC Planning Portal by the gaining developer Summerfields.

Q1. Are SCC stating that no-one attended this PR Consensus meeting (for the gaining developer)?

or

Q2. Are SCC admitting that no such meeting calendar re this PR Consensus meeting (for the gaining developer) & attendance records have been properly kept?

If is the latter, I would be obliged if you could confirm that you have updated the Monitoring Officer Julian Gale and the Service Manager Phil Lowndes that diary keeping of meetings attended (and by whom and in what role) is an issue, alongside not keeping proper legible and accessible records of meeting notes with gaining developers for s106/CIL etc meetings; which is already subject to a Stage 1 complaint and awaiting SCC to update procedures to ensure proper record keeping for s106/CIL etc meetings.

Q3. Would the attendance at this event with the hospitality provided (meals, drinks etc) have met the thresh-hold to be registered on the hospitality/gift register?

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

Thank you for your email, as outlined in my previous email because you did not receive a correct response to your FOI request I will now be treating this as an Internal Review of the facts.

I will get back to you in due course

Regards

Peter Grogan
Information Governance Manager
B2 East County Hall
TAUNTON
TA1 4DY

01823357175
07500882481

show quoted sections

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

[FOI #206595 email]

In response your email of 4th of July rather than complete a full Internal
Review Document as this was done via the last exchange I thought it best,
as there are no further statutory matters to clarify, to address your
questions directly.

SCC were not aware of the meeting documentation, supplied by  Consensus,
held by Taunton Deane which gives the names of the attendees, This
information does not change the fact that Somerset County Council does not
hold a record of the meeting. I have, again, consulted with the Highways
service who have provided the following responses to your questions.

1.      Somerset County Council hold no record of this meeting and
therefore can neither confirm nor deny attendance.  [Reggie Tricker
finished working for SCC in July 2012 so is not able to comment.  There is
not (and has not been) a cycling officer by the name of David Williams
employed by SCC.]

2.      Somerset County Council hold no record of the meeting on our
files. 

3.      Somerset County Council are not able to confirm or otherwise as
there is no record of the meeting and any hospitality offered.

SCC cannot provide any further comment as our files contain no record of
the meeting.

I have copied Julian Gale and Phil Lowndes into all correspondence in
order to keep them fully briefed on this matter  in case of relevance to
your complaint.

This particular FOI request has run its course internally, if you are
still dissatisfied with the response please you are entitled to complain
to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF      

Tel: 0303 – 123 1113

Yours Sincerely

Peter Grogan

Information Governance Manager

B2 East County Hall

TAUNTON

TA1 4DY

01823357175

07500882481

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

Thank you for responding so promptly and for the confirmation of further omissions of information that should have been kept by SCC.

As you state, the FOIA statutory side has now been exhausted and no further Internal Review-related work is o/s.

Thank you for copying in the relevant Monitoring and Service Manager Officers at SCC, regarding the complaint about not holding information re such meetings, which has been admitted as poor practise already by SCC.

The hand-written notes (typed up afterwards on my request) from TDBC do indeed confirm that Mr Tricker did attend for SCC. That adds weight to the basis of the complaint about proper records not being kept of meetings with gaining developers and/or their agents.

Clearly, Mr Lowndes (as the Service Manager) will need to address keeping proper attendance records, alongside legible and accessible notes of such meetings with gaining developers and/or their agents.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Dear Peter Grogan,

One final point that has occurred to me since the ICO have taken up a related appeal on ref.FER0539621.

The ICO may wish to make contact with former SCC Officer Reggie Tricker.

a) Has former SCC Officer Reggie Tricker's email and Outlook or other calendar been checked for entries? If so, please disclose.

b) If former SCC Officer Reggie Tricker has moved to another authority, then have SCC contacted him for his written recollections of the event in question? If so, please supply. If not, please make contact, write up and then disclose.

c) Did Mr Tricker make any relevant declarations in the hospitality register?

d) Did Mr Ticker claim any expenses for the relevant meeting[s] this confirming attendance?

I want to make sure that if SCC emphatically deny holding data (that would be expected to be held if proper information management and best practise was being followed) then we don't find later on that such data exists.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

I'm on leave on Wednesday the 9th July and out of the office conducting a course in Exeter on Thursday the 10th and will not be able to answer email or phone calls

If you have an urgent enquiry please contact Louisa Gosling ([email address]) 01823 359376 or Andrea Binding ([email address]) 01823 357205

Rgds Peter
This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to whom it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material and should be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998. If this email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or RESTRICTED in the header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines, if not protectively marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.

If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately. If you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute, copy, print or rely on any of the information contained in it or attached, and all copies must be deleted immediately.

Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses, any attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our anti-virus software has failed to identify. You should therefore carry out your own anti-virus checks before opening any documents. Somerset County Council will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer viruses emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this email.

All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in accordance with relevant legislation.

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

Thank you for your email

1. I have asked our ICT colleagues to establish if the email and calendar still exist or if they have been deleted, once this is established I will conduct a search.

2. This FOI Review will only concern itself with information that is held by Somerset County Council. Any investigation beyond that remit would be outside the scope of the review.

3. I have asked for our Governance team to examine the hospitality register and will report back in due course

4. Please could you confirm the date of the meeting at which Mr Tricker is recorded as attending so that I can refine the search of the expenses records

Yours Sincerely

Peter Grogan
Information Governance Manager
B2 East County Hall
TAUNTON
TA1 4DY

01823357175
07500882481

show quoted sections

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

I have had confirmation that the email account does still exist, please could you supply the limited date range or key words on which you would like a search directed

Regards

Peter Grogan
Information Governance Manager
B2 East County Hall
TAUNTON
TA1 4DY

01823357175
07500882481

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

From previous FOIs:

Summerfields paid for a 2-year consultancy (July 2010 to March 2012) by a PR company called Consensus:

In October 2011 Consensus (on behalf of Summerfields) held an away day workshop at a local hotel euphemistically called "Killams and Mountfield Critiquing Panel".
=======================================================

If the email account still exists (why not already searched then?), does the Calendar also exist?

Can I suggest an email & calendar meeting search from July 2010 (when Consensus PR hired by gaining developer Summerfield) thru to December 2013 (when planning notice for Killams issued).

Key words can include "Killams", "Consensus" "critiqueing panel", "Summerfield", "Gary Cartmell".

Also, any emails from relevant SCC Officers (including Mr Tricker) to domains "@consensuspr.co.uk" and "@summerfield.co.uk".

Also, checking expense claims during this period may provide corroboration too.

Can Mr Tricker be contacted?

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Dear Peter Grogan,

Sorry - I saw your last note and did not read the one before.

Re expenses search: Meeting In Oct 2011, so from Oct 2011 to Mar 2012 should cover it.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

I have obtained an extract of Mr Tricker's expenses claims from our Payroll system. There is not a lot of detail in the claim record.

Please could I ask you to specify the dates of the meetings you are interested in, as indicated earlier in the correspondence SCC Highways do not have a record of the meeting you are referring to.

I will then be able to match these dates to the dates in the claim and confirm or not if mileage was claimed on those dates.

Yours Sincerely

Peter Grogan
Information Governance Manager
B2 East County Hall
TAUNTON
TA1 4DY

01823357175
07500882481

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

The tdbc link at top of this FOI has details within.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

 

Thank you for the clarification, I have been able to discern the
applicable dates from the attached links and associated FOI requests to
TDBC.

 

I am waiting on updates from colleagues concerning the email  / calendar
and hospitality questions and expect to have an answer for you shortly

 

Regards

 

 

Peter Grogan

Information Governance Manager

B2 East County Hall

TAUNTON

TA1 4DY

 

01823357175

07500882481

 

From: David Orr [mailto:[email address]]
Sent: 18 July 2014 12:14
To: Peter Grogan
Cc: Julian Gale; Honor Clarke
Subject: TDBC Planning supplied meeting dates & notes showing SCC Officers
present...

 

Dear Mr Grogan,

 

In response to your voice mail yesterday (I was on an away day in
Teignmouth) to seek to clarify the dates for SCC attendance at the PR
Consensus Killams & Mountfields Critiqueing Panel,  please see the
attached response document from TDBC - which may be helpful?

 

The fact that you need to contact me for likely dates, when SCC Officers
attended a significant & declarable planning event (by the agent of the
gaining developer Summerfield's), makes a de facto case for my suspended
complaint (at Stage 1) that SCC should be properly & legibly  recording
these events themselves to comply with the EIA and FOIA.

 

Additionally, you may need to check dates & details with Summerfield's and
Consensus, as they may be holding relevant information on SCC's behalf
(currently subject to an ICO referral & case review).

 

[1]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/k...

 

[2]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/d...

 

TDBC have been far more responsive in providing Killams-related
information and then quickly accepting that s106/CIL meeting records (with
gaining developers' and/or their agents) needs to be properly & legibly
kept, to comply with EIA regulations and FOI disclosure.

 

I have raised fresh concerns with the SCC Monitoring Officer, as to
whether the SCC Planning Service and the relevant Senior Managers were
giving you proper support (within the FOI Act) as the SCC Information
Governance Manager, to determine whether such data exists under EIA
regulations and the FOI Act.

 

I hope that helps you in discharging your duties on behalf of SCC, to
fully comply with EIA regulations and the FOI Act.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

David Orr.

This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to
whom it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material
and should be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection
Act 1998. If this email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or
RESTRICTED in the header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines,
if not protectively marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.

If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately.
If you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute,
copy, print or rely on any of the information contained in it or attached,
and all copies must be deleted immediately. 

Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses,
any attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our
anti-virus software has failed to identify.  You should therefore carry
out your own anti-virus checks before opening any documents.  Somerset
County Council will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer
viruses emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this
email.

All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in
accordance with relevant legislation.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/k...
2. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/d...

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

3 Attachments

Dear Mr Orr

In response to your clarification questions concerning the internal review
of request number 140449.

a) Has former SCC Officer Reggie Tricker's email and Outlook or other
calendar been checked for entries? If so, please disclose.

Please find attaches a PDF containing all the email correspondence based
on the search criteria of Killams, Summerfield, Consensus or Critiquing
Panel. Some information has been redacted, principally the contact details
of some individuals deemed exempt as personal data under section 40 (2) of
the FOI Act. No public interest test is required to support this
exemption.

<<FOI 140449 attachment.pdf>>

On one email dated 3^rd July 2012some draft financial estimates have been
redacted as the service deemed these were Commercially Sensitive
information and were exempt under section 43 (2) of the FOI Act and could
also be misleading if they were to be released into the public domain.

Public Interest Test

In favour of release are the arguments of;

a)      transparency of the authority for public expenditure and

b)      accountability for decision making.

The arguments against release are;

a)      the impact that such information might affect the commercial
competitiveness of the companies if released into the public domain.

b)      The loss of confidence in commercial companies in dealing with the
Council if drafts and estimates were disclosed prior to authorised
procurement, tender and contract award processes had been completed.

On balance the decision has been taken not to disclose this
information as;

 

a)      these figures were not actual expenditure and only drafts that
were not material to the decision making process.

b)      the Council believes it would undermine confidence in companies
providing outline estimates prior to establishing firm pricing

c)      the Council believes that private companies are entitled to
exchange pricing information in confidence until costs are finalised.

b) If former SCC Officer Reggie Tricker has moved to another authority,
then have SCC contacted him for his written recollections of the event in
question? If so, please supply. If not, please make contact, write up and
then disclose.

An FOI request will only concern itself with information held by the
Authority. Whilst I appreciate your desire for Mr Tricker to be contacted
this falls outside the remit of this Internal Review.

c) Did Mr Tricker make any relevant declarations in the hospitality
register?

A Search has been conducted of the Hospitality Register and no records
have been made against Mr Tricker

d) Did Mr Ticker claim any expenses for the relevant meeting[s] this
confirming attendance?

Following a search of Mr Tricker’s expenses from our Finance system I can
categorically state that Mr Tricker did not make any travel claims for
meetings on the dates specified in your email of 18.07.2014 (attached).
Nor did any other adjacent claims make reference to Killams, Summerfield,
Consensus or Critiquing Panel. This includes a search of all dates held on
the associated dates on the TDBC FOI requests, these links of which were
included in the email.

<<TDBC Planning supplied meeting dates & notes showing SCC Officers
present...>>

If you are not content with the responses to your  supplementary questions
following the Internal Review, you have the right to apply directly to the
Information Commissioner’s Office for a further decision. The Information
Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

[1]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom... -

Helpline on 0303 123 1113

Yours Sincerely

Peter Grogan

Information Governance Manager

B2 East County Hall

TAUNTON

TA1 4DY

01823357175

07500882481

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

The disclosures of emails show that Reggie Tricker handed over to Craig Mason as an interim post-holder pending a full appointment.

I think it would be reasonable to extend the email search for the same parameters to Craig Mason and whoever took over (if not Craig).

Please extend the search for all disclosable information as requested above.

There is a major FOI Act compliance issue with this service telling you that no information existed (without conducting reasonable searches for the requested information), when in fact copious information existed.

Is that a Council-wide policy/culture issue or does this service require words of "caution & guidance"?

Please advise as to how this will be addressed?

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

This request for extending the information recovery will be considered as a new request as it will entail the search and recovery of data from a new individual not previously identified in your original questions

The Information Request team will contact you in due course with a new reference number

Please be aware that if you raise a number of requests in a limited period of time the time taken to respond to these requests and subsequent questions can be aggregated and may exceed the allowable limit of 18 hours, at which point the requests may become chargeable at £25 an hour

With regard to the request number 140449 if you are unsatisfied with the results of the Internal Review and answers to the follow up questions please contact the Information Commissioner's Office.

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Helpline on 0303 123 1113

Peter Grogan
Information Governance Manager
B2 East County Hall
TAUNTON
TA1 4DY

01823357175
07500882481

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

I think that the delays and issues cannot be laid at the feet of the requester, but rather at the service, upon whom you relied for accurate and timely responses and proper searches to establish whether data existed.

There is no vexatious intent in my follow-ups - rather a desire to ensure that SCC properly disclose information as per the FOI Act.

Absence of proper information in this FOI is related to my Stage 1 Complaint, currently suspended awaiting a documented service improvement outcome.

The original FOI request above covered all SCC Officers involved and when you asked me to be helpful by narrowing down the search (although I have no detailed knowledge of the service concerned), I did so to the best of my ability.

I was essentially requiring information by Officer role and knowledge of changes of personnel is something that only SCC could know.

I did in that search scoping request state:

Also, any emails from relevant SCC Officers (including Mr Tricker)
to domains "@consensuspr.co.uk" and "@summerfield.co.uk".

Was that wider relevant email search conducted, as you did not mention it in disclosures above?

I think that covers the scope but if you wish to classify this as another FOI for internal purposes, I have no objection.

I have four other o/s and delayed FOIs on a completely separate public interest topic (regarding procurement savings post the contract renegotiation with IBM for the controversial South West One joint venture).

I do not see that those four other o/s and delayed FOIs fall within the aggregation criteria you outlined above (regarding as to when a reasonable charge may be levied).

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

Thank you for your email.

I thought it best to clarify that the council does not consider your pursuit of this matter vexatious; rather that the number FOI requests, and follow up questions, on the subject of Killams, Summerfield and related matters have created a cumulative burden on the service that may exceed the 18 hours allowable under the FOI statute (Section 12).

I hope the attached guidance is of assistance in understanding that requests on a similar subject, over a 60 working day period, may be aggregated.

http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/free...

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/...

http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/free...

Your FOIs on other subjects regarding procurement savings post the contract renegotiation with IBM for the controversial South West One joint venture are not considered as part of any aggregation.

No wider email search for was conducted for "@consensuspr.co.uk" and "@summerfield.co.uk as the search was refined. As you have mentioned in your email the Council agreed with you clarification for specific dates, keywords and specific officer contacts in order to avoid potential refusal under Section 12. Without some search criteria a trawl of all potential SCC contacts, their email accounts and correspondence across a number of years would have exceed the 18 hour limit.

With regard to the request number 140449 if you are unsatisfied with the results of the Internal Review and answers to the follow up questions please contact the Information Commissioner's Office.

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Helpline on 0303 123 1113

Yours Sincerely

Peter Grogan
Information Governance Manager
B2 East County Hall
TAUNTON
TA1 4DY

01823357175
07500882481

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

Thank you for this clarification.

The amount of effort by SCC required has come about by:

The failure of the SCC Planning service to keep legible and accessible notes for s106/CIL etc meetings with gaining developers (a breach of the FOI Act in itself) has created excessive administration, that I would argue is down to the SCC Planning service and cannot be properly counted into the s12 18 hour limit.

Following a suspended Stage 1 complaint, SCC admitted poor practise and remedial action for not keeping legible s106/CIL etc meeting notes; this FOI came about as a direct result of that poor practise.

NOTE: The remedial action to my complaint is also late and required further follow up and wasted time on my part.

Additionally, disclosures from Taunton Deane Borough Council clearly showed that SCC were incorrect, when they repeatedly stated that no information existed.

That incorrect response only came after serially ignoring FOI Act response time limits and a number of polite reminders on my part (wasting my time yet again).

Nor can the time involved for the number of follow-ups and internal reviews be counted under s12, when the SCC Planning service failed to make reasonable searches to establish if the information existed (another breach of the FOI Act).

Essentially, I am saying that a lack of competence and compliance on the part of the SCC Planning service in properly responding to and meeting this FOI, cannot be counted against me as the FOI requester, in terms of time taken under s12.

Are you saying that despite Reggie Tricker's role & position being taken over by other Officer[s], you will not be extending the email search to the same role but with successor Officer[s] - something I could not possibly know or narrow down? Please confirm.

I did not agree with removal of the email searches of emails sent to Consensus and Summerfield that SCC have now omitted (despite prior agreement).

Conducting an emails search within the narrowly defined dates to these identified gaining developer and agent's domains is a relatively simple thing to do within your corporate email system and has only come about due to a failure by the SCC Planning service to keep legible & accessible s106/CIL etc meeting notes.

Failing to conduct a targeted and reasonable email search of these two domains could be construed as the SCC Planning service seeking to avoid disclosure of high, local public interest information that may come to light.

Please confirm your intent to not make these previously agreed reasonable searches on Consensus and Summerfield domains (within a defined & narrow date range) and I will then move to a formal ICO appeal.

I will argue to the ICO that the SCC failure to keep proper and legible records of the s106/CIL etc meeting notes for Killams has directly caused the need for wider (but defined and targeted) email searches.

I will also argue to the ICO that the two domain searches within narrow dates are a reasonable request and the time taken to meet them is down to SCC's lack of proper record keeping and does not fall against the FOI requester (within s12).

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

I will raise the question of the email search with our ICT provider. They will provide me with an estimate of the time to write the query and extract the data and advise if a search of this nature is possible and if it will impact upon the efficacy of the email service.

You will need to appreciate that the search of over 4,500 current email accounts across multiple servers and domains and many hundreds / thousands more archived dormant accounts will involve possibly millions of emails as each account is filtered to meet the specifics of your request regarding target domains and dates.

In order to ensure this search is defined correctly and potential impact is assessed

Please could you

a) specify again the date range over which you would like the search conducted.

b) Confirm it is for

i) all email sent from any ???.somerset.gov.uk account to "@consensuspr.co.uk" and "@summerfield.co.uk
ii) all email sent from "@consensuspr.co.uk" and "@summerfield.co.uk to any ???.somerset.gov.uk account

Once the request has been clarified and our ICT provider has assessed the impact of the request I will contact you again

Yours Sincerely

Peter Grogan
Information Governance Manager
B2 East County Hall
TAUNTON
TA1 4DY

01823357175
07500882481

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

You have already determined dates as follows:

From: Peter Grogan Somerset County Council 18 July 2014

Dear Mr Orr

Thank you for the clarification, I have been able to discern the
applicable dates from the attached links and associated FOI requests to TDBC.
================================================

Please use the same dates as determined above.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Dear Peter Grogan,

I have already replied.... Please use same date range as used for previous disclosure.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

I have discussed the follow up question regarding the request for further
information on FOI 140449 with colleagues in our ICT support partner SWOne

The response is as follows regarding searching for the following messages
over an extended timescale

 i) all email sent from any ???.somerset.gov.uk account to
"@consensuspr.co.uk" and "@summerfield.co.uk

ii) all email sent from "@consensuspr.co.uk" and "@summerfield.co.uk
to any ???.somerset.gov.uk account

 

"Using the current electronic messaging infrastructure in use by the
Council it is not possible to search all of the individual mailboxes
for messages sent to specific addresses. It is possible to search all
outbound email from the Council to external organisations using the
logs on the gateway that sends emails, unfortunately this is
currently limited to 7 days."

As SCC have no automated means to recover the information you have
requested this would mean having to use a manual search of the entire
email population of the Council for the specific addresses. Given the
number of accounts and the volume of email I estimate this would exceed
the “appropriate limit” of 18 hours as defined in Section 12 of the FOI
Act.

I am therefore refusing to this request in its current form under
[1]Section 12 (1) of the FOI Act

If you are able to clarify / redefine the request to a small number of
named officers mail boxes I will be able to reconsider the request

If you are still unsatisfied with the results of this Internal Review and
the answers to your follow up questions please contact the Information
Commissioner's Office.

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Helpline on 0303 123 1113

Yours sincerely

Peter Grogan

Information Governance Manager

B2 East County Hall

TAUNTON

TA1 4DY

07500882481

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

I would have thought that the searches for emails to & from summerfields and consensus domains could have been conducted against the Highways/Planning Officers already identified in the current disclosures - to limit searches to a reasonable scale. Can that now be carried out please?

Keeping Outgoing logs for only 7 days does look like an information management issue as data storage is relatively cheap now. Will you check best practice please (possibly with the ICO) and confirm that SCC are improving this log retention period?

The inability to recover this information in the absence of keeping proper meeting and file notes confirms that the basis of my Stage 1 complaint is validated; I would be obliged if you would inform the Monitoring Officer Julian Gale and the County Solicitor Honor Clarke of this.

Finally, can SCC and the Highways/Planning service concerned confirm to you, that no additional information exists (in Killams-related files covering s106/CIL, PTP etc) that was created after the Consensus attending Officer Reggie Tricker left SCC, but remains disclosable under the FOIA as it covers the issue and period in question.

To date, the Highways/Planning service in SCC has shown a serially casual attitude to FOIA compliance and has repeatedly denied information existed, when a modest email search revealed copious amounts of disclosable information.

Can I respectfully suggest that prior to the Highways/Planning service issuing a denial that further information relating to Reggie Tricker exists, that a careful search is conducted in the relevant files.

Then will you (on behalf of SCC) either disclose the additional information relating to Reggie Tricker or explicitly confirm to me that the Highways/Planning service are denying any such remaining information exists that should be disclosed under the FOIA.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

3 Attachments

Dear Mr Orr

I have read through your request log on WDTK.com and I have requested an email and correspondence search for any officer, named in that request, not already covered in previous investigations for the period July 2012 to March 2012 concerning Summerfield and Consensus.

The logs referred to include the millions of transactions across the SCC network not just email, these logs are retained in accordance with PSN requirements for intrusion detection and prevention. The email traffic is retained in the exchange servers in accordance with service good practice, email of substance is transferred to files and folders for statutory retention periods as required. I have attached copies of SCC policy for Records Management, Records Retention and Data Destruction.

I have copied in Julian Gale and Honor Clark to keep them abreast of your concerns over record keeping and to update your complaint file.

I am meeting with Phil Lowndes shortly and will be able to issue you with a definitive statement concerning this request after which I believe you will have exhausted the Internal Review process and you should ask the ICO to externally review your matter.

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom... -

Helpline on 0303 123 1113

Yours Sincerely

Peter Grogan
Information Governance Manager
B2 East County Hall
TAUNTON
TA1 4DY

Work 01823359127
[mobile number]

show quoted sections

Dear Peter Grogan,

I am awaiting a final response following your meeting with Mr Lowndes to confirm that all relevant information has been disclosed.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

Peter Grogan, Somerset Council

Dear Mr Orr

 

I apologise for not getting back to you as my efforts were focussed on
processing  the ICO complaint you raised last month on the associated FOI
– FER0539624

 

The response, to the ICO, on that request regarding the Killams meeting
minutes was sent off yesterday and no doubt the ICO will be in contact
with you to discuss the content

 

In response to your specific question on FOI 140449:

 

I can confirm that all relevant information held by SCC, not otherwise
exempted in previous FOI / EIR requests, has been disclosed.

 

I hope this closes the matter but should you wish to take it further the
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

[1]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom... -

 

Helpline on 0303 123 1113

 

Yours Sincerely

 

Peter Grogan

Information Governance Manager

B2 East County Hall

TAUNTON

TA1 4DY

 

Work    01823359127

[mobile number]

 

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