LOBO loans

The request was partially successful.

Jamie Griffiths

Dear Swansea Council,

1. How many Lender Option Borrower Option (LOBOs) contracts do you have on your books?

2. When were they signed and by whom?

3. With which financial institutions were they taken out?

4. Who advised the council to enter the LOBO(s)?

5. Since each Contract has been signed, has the lender exercised their option and changed the interest rate?

6. If so, please specify the dates of the interest rate changes and the revised interest rates.

7. Please provide a copy of the original, signed LOBO agreements.

Yours faithfully,

Jamie Griffiths

John, Nia, Swansea Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Griffiths,

 

Please see attached response to your FOI request dated 7th March 2015:-

 

Kind Regards,

Nia John
(01792) 636884
8 [1][email address].
+Payables Control Unit

 

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Ranjan Kumaran left an annotation ()

I read the following in the Swansea Letter:
Dear Mr Griffiths,

Freedom of Information request

Thank you for your request for information dated 7th March and received on the same date.

You requested the following information:-

1. How many Lender Option Borrower Option (LOBOs) contracts do you have on your books?

Answer: 10

2. When were they signed and by whom?

Answer: Various dates between 26.09.02 to 14.03.08, all signed by the Head of Finance.

3. With which financial institutions were they taken out?

Answer:
KBC Bank x 2
Barclays Bank x 5
Hypotheken Bank (formerly known as Eurohypo)
Depfa Bank
Dexia Bank

4. Who advised the council to enter the LOBO(s)?

Answer: A treasury management decision in conjunction with our advisers Capita

5. Since each Contract has been signed, has the lender exercised their option and changed the interest rate?

Answer: No lender has exercised their option to change the interest rate

6. If so, please specify the dates of the interest rate changes and the revised interest rates.

Answer: Not applicable

7. Please provide a copy of the original, signed LOBO agreements.

Answer: Not appropriate

Dear Swansea Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Swansea Council's handling of my FOI request 'LOBO loans'.

I find the following response to question 7 to be unsatisfactory:

"Not appropriate "

No reason has ben given as to why providing copies of the original loan contracts would be inappropriate. If there is a concern over commercial confidentialty I believe that this is far outweighed by the public interest in holding accountable the local authority in its borrowing decisions. LOBO loans are complex financial instruments where contracts vary considerably - proper public scrutiny can only occur where the contracts are made publicly available.

I therefore request that the contracts are provided in response to my original request.

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,

Jamie Griffiths

Davies, Jan, Swansea Council

Dear Mr Griffiths,

Thank you for your email.

This has been passed to Andrew Taylor, Complaints Manager, who will undertake the review of your request and a further response will follow in due course.

Regards,
Jan Davies
Corporate Complaints

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Taylor, Andrew, Swansea Council

1 Attachment

Jamie Griffiths left an annotation ()

Swansea have refused to disclose the loan contracts and we do not have loan principal or interest rates. Refer to ICO.

Jamie Griffiths left an annotation ()

Appeal to ICO successful. Decision notice: https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...
LOBO details (with link to contracts): http://lada.debtresistance.uk/local-auth...