Dear Dennis Fallon,

I acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information request and will liaise with the relevant Department in order to provide a response.

We will endeavour to provide this information within 20 working days.

Yours faithfully,

FOI Team
 Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council
  Legal Section, The General Offices, Steel Works Road, Ebbw Vale  NP23 6DN
  Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol Blaenau Gwent
Mae'r Adain Gyfreithiol, Y Swyddfeydd Cyffredinol, Heol Gwaith Dur, Glyn Ebwy NP23 6DN

Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiarth yn Gymraeg a saesneg a byddwn yn cyfathrebu gyda chi yn eich dewis iaith, dim ond I chi rhoi gwybod I ni pa un sydd well gennych. Ni fydd gohebu yn Gymraeg yn creu unrhyw oedi.
The Council welcomes correspondence in Welsh and English and we will communicate with you in the language of your choice, as long as you let us know which you prefer. Corresponding in Welsh will not lead to any delay.

** For future reference please can all future FOI requests be submitted via the link below:
[email address]

If you are not happy with the way in which your request has been dealt with please respond requesting an internal review. You may also contact the Information Commissioner if you are still not happy with the way your request has been dealt with.

The Information Commissioner’s address is:
Information Commissioner’s Office – Wales
2nd Floor, Churchill House
Churchill Way
Cardiff
CF10 2HH
Telephone: 029 2067 8400
Fax: 029 2067 8399
Email: [email address]

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Dear Dennis

In response to your Freedom of Information request, please find details
below.

FOI Q1.Please confirm if litter enforcement is currently carried out by
Council employees or via an agency  authorised by the Council and, if via
an agency, please name the business concerned and when they were first
engaged. Please confirm if the same system of enforcement existed in 2012
and, if enforcement is by way of agency, please disclose a copy of the
contract between the Council and the agency so the arrangement may be
viewed. – Litter enforcement is provided by a contractor authorised by the
Council. The company is currently Kingdom Security Limited. Kingdom
Security Limited have been working for the Council since the 1^st March
2013. This system of enforcement has been in place since October 2011 and
was provided by XFOR limited from this date to the 1^st March 2013. Copy
of service specification of contract attached.

FOI Q2.If enforcement is via agency, please advise what proportion of the
£75 fines is kept by the Council and how the amounts have been agreed, and
if enforcement targets exist please advise. This information would
provide the detailed finance arrangements associated with the contract and
would be commercially confidential.  In this case we would apply an
exemption under section 43 – commercial interests.

No enforcement targets exist.

FOI Q3.Please advise how many FPN`s for littering have been issued on a
monthly basis (or annual basis if your system cannot recall) since January
2012, how many have been paid, and how many have been referred to your
legal department for nonpayment and court action. Monthly breakdown of
FPN’s issued for littering attached. Total paid 5293, total prosecuted
1959.

FOI Q4.Please advise who has been the council leader since January 2012,
and who has been the head of enforcement.

Head of Public Protection is Mr David Thompson.

Councillor Hedley McCarthy, Leader -  May 2012 – December 2015 (Labour)

Councillor Steve Thomas, Leader  -  December 2015 –May 2017 (Labour)

Councillor Nigel Daniels, Leader   -   May 2017 – to present
(Independent)                                  

If you are not happy with the way in which your request has been dealt
with please respond requesting an internal review. You may also contact
the Information Commissioner if you are still not happy with the way your
request has been dealt with.

The Information Commissioner’s address is:

Information Commissioner’s Office – Wales

2nd Floor, Churchill House

Churchill Way

Cardiff

CF10 2HH

Telephone: 029 2067 8400

Fax: 029 2067 8399

Email: [1][email address]

Yours sincerely,

FOI Team

Legal & Corporate Compliance / Cydymffurfio Cyfreithiol a Chorfforaethol

Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council / Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol Blaenau
Gwent

Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg a Saesneg a byddwn yn
cyfathrebu gyda chi yn eich dewis iaith, dim ond i chi rhoi gwybod i ni pa
un sydd well gennych. Ni fydd gohebu yn Gymraeg yn creu unrhyw oedi.

The Council welcomes correspondence in Welsh and English and we will
communicate with you in the language of your choice, as long as you let us
know which you prefer. Corresponding in Welsh will not lead to any delay.

Dear Mr Fallon,

I acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information request and will collate the requested information. I can also confirm we have received your request for an internal appeal regarding your previous request that will also be processed in due course.

Yours sincerely,

FOI Team
Legal & Corporate Compliance / Cydymffurfio Cyfreithiol a Chorfforaethol
Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council / Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol Blaenau Gwent

Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg a Saesneg a byddwn yn cyfathrebu gyda chi yn eich dewis iaith, dim ond i chi rhoi gwybod i ni pa un sydd well gennych. Ni fydd gohebu yn Gymraeg yn creu unrhyw oedi.
The Council welcomes correspondence in Welsh and English and we will communicate with you in the language of your choice, as long as you let us know which you prefer. Corresponding in Welsh will not lead to any delay.

Dear Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council, I am sorry to see you are providing a second rate service in your FOI department.It can be viewed as very bad manners to ignore or fail to acknowledge a request when that is the very reason for their employment reasons, and although I have discovered that Paul Amos is your accountable Information and Governance Officer he is failing to keep up with the workload and seeks to avoid responsibility by addressing responses as FOI Team. Your FOI Team are supposed to be accountable and comply with the law, and if they are understaffed and under pressure they should at least provide an excuse or apology which may be acceptable. There are several requests on the whatdotheyknow.com website which are being dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner.I would appreciate knowing, apart from Paul Amos, how many people comprise the FOI Team, how many requests they are currently dealing with, and how many of theses requests are noncompliant with the legally set FOI timescales.
I demand an acknowledgement of my appeal request and the identity of the independent person who will be dealing with it.

Thanking you in frustration,
Yours faithfully,

dennis fallon

Dear Mr Fallon,

As you can appreciate, the volume of requests received by the Council varies considerably from day to day, therefore it may sometimes take a little longer to acknowledge receipt of a request. In any case, we endeavour to do so as quickly as possible.

There are two Officers within the team that are responsible for processing the Council's Freedom of Information requests.
The total number of requests currently outstanding are 47. There are between 60-80 requests received on a monthly basis. The Council's performance in handling FOI requests is monitored through the internally developed database system; the most recent quarterly report confirms just over 90% of requests are handled within the 20 working day response timeframe.

I can confirm that the internal review will be considered by the Head of Legal & Corporate Compliance.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Amos
Data Protection & Governance Officer / Diogelu Data a Swyddog Llywodraethu
Legal & Corporate Compliance / Cydymffurfio Cyfreithiol a Chorfforaethol
Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council / Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol Blaenau Gwent

Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg a Saesneg a byddwn yn cyfathrebu gyda chi yn eich dewis iaith, dim ond i chi rhoi gwybod i ni pa un sydd well gennych. Ni fydd gohebu yn Gymraeg yn creu unrhyw oedi.
The Council welcomes correspondence in Welsh and English and we will communicate with you in the language of your choice, as long as you let us know which you prefer. Corresponding in Welsh will not lead to any delay.

Dear Mr Fallon,

In response to your request for an Internal review, I can confirm that this has been considered by the Head of Legal & Corporate Compliance and provide the full response below.

APPEAL POINT 1. Disclosure of the contract

The Corporate Procurement Manager has confirmed that the contract was formed on the basis of their signed form of contract as submitted during the tender process. Please find a signed copy attached as Appendix 1 and the associated document titled 'T&Cs'.

In accordance with the Council's Standing Orders for Contracts, notices were published via the national procurement website and the authority's e-tendering portal. The procurement was let via an open procedure (whereby all firms registering an interest were able to access relevant tender documentation and respond accordingly) in an attempt to maximise interest.

The initial invitation to tender was submitted with a deadline for return by 12:00 on 23rd May 2013, however there was only 1 tender received.
A re-tender exercise was carried out and advertised on Sell2Wales 9th September 2013. The return date for tenders was 4th October 2013. There were 8 initial expressions of interest, however only 3 tender responses were submitted by the stipulated closing date.

The tenders were opened and considered in line with the Council's Corporate Procurement Rules (formerly Standing Orders) that are available online, within the Council's Constitution.

There was a delay with the tender process due to a review of income by PWC during 2013/14. This was concluded and approved by the Council's Executive on 2nd April 2014.

Please note, XFOR limited worked with the authority under a Service Level Agreement from October 2011 - March 2013, until the company was taken over by Kingdom Security Limited. Kingdom continued to provide this service under an SLA until May 2014 when a full tender exercise was completed and contract awarded.

APPEAL POINT 2. My FOI Q2 requested to know what proportion of the £75 fines is kept by the Council

This Council continues to apply the exemption under section 43 - commercial interests as this information would provide the detailed finance arrangements associated with the contract that are commercially confidential.

There is a public interest in public bodies being able to contract services effectively, so anything which prevents that (such as companies being fearful that commercially sensitive information will be disclosed to their competitors) will not be in the public interest. Generally speaking, it is not in the public interest for the market for particular goods or services to be distorted, through, for example, a company’s ability to compete being damaged.

If the commercial secrets of one of the organisations in the market were revealed then its competitive position would be eroded and the whole market would be less competitive with the result that the public benefit of having an efficient competitive market would be to some extent eroded.

Please note, the supplier's comments were sought regarding the disclosure of this information and although failing to obtain consent for disclosure would not be the sole reason to apply the exemption, we do take this into consideration as part of our assessment when considering the exemption criteria.

The Council feels that disclosure of Kingdoms detailed pricing mechanisms would be likely to prejudice its commercial interests. It agrees that the total cost of the contract and amounts paid to Kingdom could be disclosed in order to be open and transparent with its use of public money.
On this basis the public interest is in favour of non-disclosure for the proportion of fines made payable to Kingdom.

APPEAL POINT 3. My FOI Q4 requested accountability, namely ".Please advise who has been the council leader since January 2012,and who has been the head of enforcement".

I apologise we missed the period January - May in the previous response, this was an oversight. I can confirm that the Leader of the Council during January - May 2012 was Cllr John Mason.

APPEAL POINT 4.The data regarding penalty fines only goes as recent as April 2017.

Please find additional data attached.
I can confirm that the contract with Kingdom Security remains in place.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Amos
Data Protection & Governance Officer / Diogelu Data a Swyddog Llywodraethu
Legal & Corporate Compliance / Cydymffurfio Cyfreithiol a Chorfforaethol
Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council / Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol Blaenau Gwent

Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg a Saesneg a byddwn yn cyfathrebu gyda chi yn eich dewis iaith, dim ond i chi rhoi gwybod i ni pa un sydd well gennych. Ni fydd gohebu yn Gymraeg yn creu unrhyw oedi.
The Council welcomes correspondence in Welsh and English and we will communicate with you in the language of your choice, as long as you let us know which you prefer. Corresponding in Welsh will not lead to any delay.