Minutes of various panels, statutory committees, advisory committees and working parties
Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,
Four years ago I made a FOI/EIR request for various minutes of meetings.
You may remember this request as it resulted in ICO decision notices FS50509081 (which stated that s.12 (FOI) or reg.12 (EIR) costs) could not be used as a reason for refusal, FS50569254 (which stated that apart from the parts that related to Adoption/Fostering Panels that you could not class it as vexatious), decision notice FS50596346 and First-tier Tribunal case EA/2016/0033 (the decision can be read here http://informationrights.decisions.tribu... ).
The decision notices can be read by entering the decision notice number here https://search.ico.org.uk/ico/search/dec... .
Please could you bear in mind the above before deciding on this request and perhaps reading the thread on whatdotheyknow relating to the previous request here https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m... would be useful too.
This request is for minutes (whether in draft or approved form) of the meeting (as my previous request was interpreted as minutes of multiple meetings I will clarify and state this is for the minutes of one meeting only) of the following committees in relation to the most recent meeting held prior to this request being made (29th March 2017).
I have numbered each part of this request.
Children and Family Services
1) Complaints Panel (School Curriculum and Related Matters)
2) Education Staff Panel
3) Headteacher Appointments Panel
4) Standing Advisory Committee on Religious Education (SACRE)
5) Young Peoples' Advisory Group
6) Corporate Parenting Group
7) School's Joint Consultative Committee
8) Safeguarding Reference Group
Strategic Economic Development, Finance and Devolution
9) Independent Remuneration Panel
Environment
10) Wirral Climate Change Group
Transformation, Leisure and Culture
11) Birkenhead Park Advisory Committee
12) Hilbre Island Nature Reserve Management Committee
13) Members' Training Steering Group
14) Members' Equipment Steering Group
Please also note that as this for only 14 sets of minutes (rather than the request in 2013 for 26 sets of minutes) I am hopeful that this matter should be dealt with more quickly than the 3+ years it took last time for this matter to be sorted out.
I remind you of your duty to provide advice and assistance.
In order to be helpful, I regard parts 11 and 12 to be requests made under the Environmental Information Regulations 2014, although there may be parts of the rest that are classified as requests under that legislation.
Yours faithfully,
John Brace
Dear Mr Brace
Thank you for your recent request that has been treated under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 and Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
The Council, however, requires more time to determine and process, under
the Freedom of Information Act any information held in relation to parts
5) and 6) of your enquiry. We apologise for this delay and aim to provide
this part of your response by 15^th May 2017 and trust this is acceptable
to you.
However in order to not delay the information that has been processed,
please find your information attached.
Yours sincerely,
Tracy O'Hare
Information Management Officer
Business Services - Digital
Treasury Building
Cleveland Street
Birkenhead
Wirral
CH41 6BL
[1]Tel:0151 691 8397
[2][Wirral Borough Council request email]
[3]LGC Awards15_Winner_MIP
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
References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/Tel:0151
2. mailto:[Wirral Borough Council request email]
Dear Mr Brace
Thank you for your recent request that has been treated under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 and Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
The Council is able to now provide the attached information held in
relation to parts 5) and 6) of your enquiry, please find attached.
We apologise for this slight delay and thank you for your patience in this
matter.
Yours sincerely,
Tracy O'Hare
Information Management Officer
Business Services - Digital
Treasury Building
Cleveland Street
Birkenhead
Wirral
CH41 6BL
[1]Tel:0151 691 8397
[2][Wirral Borough Council request email]
[3]LGC Awards15_Winner_MIP
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
References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/Tel:0151
2. mailto:[Wirral Borough Council request email]
Dear InfoMgr, FinDMT,
Thank you for supplying the minutes of the School's Strategic Joint Consultative Committee dated 28th April 2016.
If you read paragraph 2 of this judgement http://informationrights.decisions.tribu... , you'll find that states that Wirral's JCC meets termly.
This was stated by Andrew Roberts under cross-examination at a public hearing of the First-tier Tribunal in June 2016.
Therefore wouldn't the JCC minutes for the Autumn 2016 term or the Spring 2016 term be the set of minutes referred to by this request? If so could you supply the minutes for the JCC meeting nearest in time to when this request was made please?
Thanks,
Yours sincerely,
John Brace
Dear Mr Brace
Thank you for your internal review request dated 12 June 2017, in which
you queried whether the minutes of the School's Strategic Joint
Consultative Committee dated 28th April 2016 were the most upto date
available.
We can confirm that although the meetings are due to be held termly, the
subsequent meetings for Summer and Autumn Term 2016/17 did not take place
due to a number of reasons. As at the date of your request, 29 March
2017, those minutes were the latest ones available.
We trust this clarifies matters but if you remain dissatisfied with the
Council’s response to your request for internal review, you also have the
right to complain to the Information Commissioner at :
[1]https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
Yours sincerely
Lynette Paterson
Senior Information Management Officer
Business Services - Digital
Treasury Building
Argyle Street
Birkenhead
Wirral
CH41 1AH
[2]Tel: 0151 691 8201
[3][Wirral Borough Council request email]
[4]LGC Awards15_Winner_MIP
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
References
Visible links
1. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
2. file:///tmp/Tel:0151
3. mailto:[Wirral Borough Council request email]
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 'Minutes of various panels, statutory committees, advisory committees and working parties'.
This is in response to the minutes of the SACRE meeting you sent on the 28th April 2017, filename FOI 1140180 no.4 Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education on 21.09.2016.pdf .
The original request was for minutes of... "the most recent meeting held prior to this request being made (29th March 2017)."
These minutes are for a meeting dated 21st September 2016, but mention on the last page a planned meeting date of 1st February 2017 (which would appear to be the most recent meeting prior to the date of the request on the 29th March 2017). Therefore if SACRE also met on the 1st February 2017, has the right set of minutes been sent?
Also a number of names are redacted from the minutes that were sent on grounds of section 40 (personal information).
The Religious Education (Meetings of Local Conferences and Councils) Regulations 1994 at Regulation 7(c) see here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1994/... , means that up to 6 years after the public meeting of SACRE has taken place that the minutes are open to inspection.
"Personal data" in minutes that are open to inspection is not subject to the non-disclosure provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 in relation to "personal data" because of s.34, see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998... .
Therefore your argument that disclosure of the names in the SACRE minutes (personal data) in the minutes would breach the data protection principles in the Data Protection 1998 doesn't apply.
So I would like you to revisit your application of section 40 to the names removed from these minutes please. Thank you.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...
Yours faithfully,
John Brace
Dear Mr Brace,
I refer to your email of 12 September, when you made the following request
for an internal review:-
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 'Minutes of various panels, statutory
committees, advisory committees and working parties'.
This is in response to the minutes of the SACRE meeting you sent on the
28th April 2017, filename FOI 1140180 no.4 Standing Advisory Council for
Religious Education on 21.09.2016.pdf .
The original request was for minutes of... "the most recent meeting held
prior to this request being made (29th March 2017)."
These minutes are for a meeting dated 21st September 2016, but mention on
the last page a planned meeting date of 1st February 2017 (which would
appear to be the most recent meeting prior to the date of the request on
the 29th March 2017). Therefore if SACRE also met on the 1st February
2017, has the right set of minutes been sent?
Also a number of names are redacted from the minutes that were sent on
grounds of section 40 (personal information).
The Religious Education (Meetings of Local Conferences and Councils)
Regulations 1994 at Regulation 7(c) see here
[1]http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1994/... , means
that up to 6 years after the public meeting of SACRE has taken place that
the minutes are open to inspection.
"Personal data" in minutes that are open to inspection is not subject to
the non-disclosure provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 in relation
to "personal data" because of s.34, see
[2]http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998... .
Therefore your argument that disclosure of the names in the SACRE minutes
(personal data) in the minutes would breach the data protection principles
in the Data Protection 1998 doesn't apply.
So I would like you to revisit your application of section 40 to the names
removed from these minutes please. Thank you.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on
the Internet at this address:
[3]https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...
I consider that the information you have requested, ie the most recent
meeting prior to the date of the request on the 29th March 2017, is
reasonably accessible by other means under Section 21 of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Having made enquiries, I enclose a link to a public
website maintained by Wirral SACRE which includes unredacted minutes
(labelled draft) to a meeting held on 1 February 2017.
[4]http://wirralsacre.co.uk/documents.html. I apologise that you were sent
an earlier set of redacted minutes which were sent in good faith based on
the information available at that time.
If you are dissatisfied with this response to your request for an internal
review, you also have the right to complain to the Information
Commissioner. The address is the Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Tel -0303 123 113
[5]https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
Yours sincerely,
Rosemary Lyon,
Solicitor,
Law and Governance
Business Services
References
Visible links
1. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1994/...
2. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998...
3. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...
4. http://wirralsacre.co.uk/documents.html
5. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
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ScarletPimpernel left an annotation ()
Here's a direct link to the minutes of the SACRE meeting hel on the 1st February 2017 http://wirralsacre.co.uk/documents/SACRE... .