Legal Services Department and Public Law Partnership
Dear Essex County Council,
1) Please provide information relating to your relationship/contract with Public Law Partnership and details of when the contract started, if it has been renewed and when it will expire (if not renewed) and the annual cost for each of the last 3 years.
a) Please advise if all solicitors working for Essex Country Council are either employed and contracted by Essex County Council or Public Law Partnership
b) Please provide information relating to whether any members of the Essex Country Council legal services department also work for/on behalf of Southend City Council and whether the number of staff this applies to is on an individual basis or whole teams which act/represent both Southend City Council and Essex County Council in matters.
2) Please provide information such as policy documents or guidance issued to solicitors with conduct of cases in Care Proceedings on instructing external representation/Counsel for hearings (such as preferred Chambers and barristers)
a. Please provide the number of 'solicitor advocates' within the legal department whom act on behalf of Essex County Council at court hearings
b. Please provide all the genre/class/type of court hearings Essex County Council has used in-house representation i.e. solicitors advocates in the last 12 months (such as in housing matters, child Care Proceedings etc).
3) Please provide a list of all the names of the IT systems used by the legal services department
Yours faithfully,
Alison Melville
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your request for information which we will handle under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The Act allows us up to 20 working days (excluding statutory holidays) to process a valid request for information.
We may be in touch with you should we require any further clarification.
We will determine and let you know whether we hold the information you have requested and consider whether we are able to release the information or if it is exempt from disclosure.
ECC does not usually charge for providing information to its requestors as the provision of electronic copies is negligible, however under certain circumstances we may have to do so if providing the information costs more than £25. We will let you know before we do any work that would incur a charge.
Please note that the response and data released to you as part of this request will be published on the Essex County Council website. The website address is https://secureapps.essex.gov.uk/Freedom_...
All requests will be anonymised and no personal information including contact details will be disclosed as part of this process.
Please contact me if you would like further advice or assistance about your request, or your right to access information held by Essex County Council.
Kind Regards
Daniel Cuthbert
Your Right To Know
External IG Team
Democracy and Transparency
Corporate and Customer Services
Essex County Council
T: 03330 134925
E: [email address]
W: www.essex.gov.uk
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your request for information. Please find our response to
all of your requests on the accompanying document. Currently open cases:
ECC14261217 02 23, ECC14261517 02 23, ECC14270120 02 23, ECC14270320 02
23, ECC14319127 02 23, ECC14319327 02 23, ECC14381907 03 23
I trust that this information satisfies your request. However, should you
require anything further, please contact me and I will endeavour to assist
you further.
If you are not satisfied with your response, please contact me so I can
try to resolve the issue. Alternatively, if you wish to make a complaint,
you can find the details at
https://www.essex.gov.uk/Your-Council/Yo...
If, after following our complaints procedure, you are still not satisfied,
you are entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to review our
decision. You can contact the Information Commissioner at Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF; Telephone 0303 123 1113.
Please note that the response and data released to you as part of this
request will be published on the Essex County Council website. The website
address is
https://www.essex.gov.uk/Your-Council/Yo....
All requests will be anonymised and no personal information including
contact details will be disclosed as part of this process.
If you would like to take a short customer satisfaction survey please use
the link below
https://consultations.essex.gov.uk/infor...
Naomi Hinder
Your Right to Know
Essex County Council
Telephone: 033301 38989
E-mail: [email address]
Dear Essex County Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Essex County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Legal Services Department and Public Law Partnership'.
This is because I believe you have improperly applied Section 12. In your refusal notice, you state yourself that I have requested a very significant amount of data ranging from policies, performance statistics, guidance documents, procurement information, structure charts, IT systems and social care assessments.
I therefore struggle to see how all my FOI requests are "made for the same or similar information" as is one of the required conditions of Section 12.
I look forward to considering your response to see which FOI requests and which information from these you are willing to provide before complaining to the ICO.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/l...
Yours faithfully,
Alison Melville
Dear Sir or Madam,
Your Internal Review Request: ECC14399109 03 23 received by us on 08/03/2023.
Thank you for your request to review our handling of your recent requests for information references:
ECC14261217 02 23 received on 16/02/2023
ECC14261517 02 23 received on 16/02/2023
ECC14270120 02 23 received on 17/02/2023
ECC14270320 02 23 received on 18/02/2023
ECC14319127 02 23 received on 27/02/2023
ECC14319327 02 23 received on 27/02/2023
ECC14381907 03 23 received on 07/03/2023
We will review the handling of your request and respond with our formal decision on the aspects you have asked us to consider within 20 working days.
Please contact me if you would like further advice or assistance about your request, review or your right to access information held by us.
Yours sincerely,
Naomi Hinder
Your Right To Know
Essex County Council
T: 033301 38989
E: [email address]
W: www.essex.gov.uk
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