New Ombudsman

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS made this Freedom of Information request to House of Commons This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

Waiting for an internal review by House of Commons of their handling of this request.

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide copies of all documentation provided to the CLG select committee related to a pre-appointment hearing for a new Local Government Ombudsman (understood to be scheduled for 12 October 2009)

Yours faithfully,

Stuart Hardwicke Carruthers

FOICOMMONS, House of Commons

Dear Stuart Hardwicke Carruthers

Thank you for your request for information dated 6 October 2009, received by us on the same day, which is copied below.

We will endeavour to respond to your request promptly but in any case within 20 working days i.e on or before 3 November 2009.

If you have any queries about your request, please use the request number quoted in the subject line of this email.

Yours sincerely

Vanessa Cubillo
Freedom of Information Assistant

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Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear FOICOMMONS,

The complaint is about the CLG select Committee failing to meet the publication scheme (s45 of FOIA), rather than handling of request. The issue of the press release is not urgent and will be difficult for CLG Select Committee to meet if CLG have failed to provide the information.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

FOICOMMONS, House of Commons

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Thank you for your email.We are unclear if you are asking for new information or for an internal review for F09-334.Could you please clarify what you request is?

Yours sincerely

Vanessa Cubillo
Freedom of Information Assistant

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Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear FOICOMMONS,

The issues are reasonably straightforward. Under the publication scheme adopted by the Select Committee (CLG) they publish press notices at least a week before an issue is to be considered. There appears to have been a failure to follow the publication scheme. This is understood to be because CLG have not provided the Select Committee with the information needed to post a press notice.

I wrote to you on 10 June 2009 on this site requesting information and on 08 July you replied..

'The new local Government Ombudsman and the deputy chair of the Commission for Local Administration in England are a single, joint role. Copies of communications between the Department and the relevant parliamentary committees regarding a pre-appointment hearing for the appointment of this role are held by the House of Commons. However, this information is exempt from disclosure under section 34 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act, as this information cannot be disclosed without infringing parliamentary privilege.

... I understand that the Clerk of the Communities and Local Government Committee has been in touch with you separately and has confirmed that the Committee is expecting to hold a pre-appointment hearing with the Government's preferred candidate for Local Government Ombudsman and Deputy Chair of the Commission for Local Administration in England. Details of the arrangements for this hearing will be announced in due course.'

It is recognized that CLG and/or the CLAE despite having identified a preferred candidate in June might have proplem's in having their candidate identified as being suitable by the Minister and their Department..

However.. that should be reported in the press notice that should have been published according to the agreed publication scheme.

It is not for me to suggest that if CLG as they obviously don't support the proposed appointee to the CLAE should explain this to their Select Committee. However, possibly this would be wise.. as well as the Select Committee seeking to clarify why CLG don't help their select committee meet their publication scheme.

Effectively, review is requested of the linked 10 June 2009 request.. as there appear to be issues with the publication scheme.. and I certainly can't fault the handling of the FOI request by CLG Select Committee who have been very open and identified that the Minister and their Department has failed to provide them with the information that they need to publish.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

FOICOMMONS, House of Commons

F09-334 & F09-642

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers,

Thank you for your emails dated 6th and 7th October in which you made a request for information, logged as F09-642, and then clarified that you were not making a request but were seeking an internal review relating to your earlier request F09-334. We understand that you are asking us to consider whether the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Select Committee has complied with the publication scheme.

The CLG Select Committee is covered by the Publication Scheme for the House of Commons. This can be found on our external website via the following link: http://www.parliament.uk/site_informatio.... This Publication Scheme states at section 7.9 that current Committee press notices are listed for approximately a week on our external website on the following link: http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_c.... It does not make a commitment to publish announcements of their sessions at least a week before they take place and has not therefore breached the Publication Scheme. Further, the CLG Committee does not have any rule or practice of publishing notices of sessions a week before any session. We are therefore unsure to what you are referring when you state that there is a publication scheme which does make this commitment.

If you would like us to look into this further, please provide us with a link to the publication scheme to which you are referring.

Yours sincerely,

Bob Castle
Head of Information Rights and Information Security

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Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear FOICOMMONS,

The link to the publication scheme adopted by the House of Commons does not appear to be working..

http://www.parliament.uk/site_informatio...

Also I have been unable to find any reference to its adoption in Hansard.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

FOICOMMONS, House of Commons

F09-334 & F09-642

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers,

If copying and pasting the link into the address bar does not work, try going to www.parliament.uk and clicking on the Freedom of Information link at the bottom of the page. This will take you to our Freedom of Information web-pages. On the left hand side, select the 'publication schemes' link and then the 'House of Commons publication scheme' link.

The House of Commons publication scheme was considered and approved by the House of Commons Commission. Hansard records proceedings in the chamber of the House and would not therefore contain a record of this.

Yours sincerely,

Bob Castle
Head of Information Rights and Information Security

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Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS

Dear FOICOMMONS,

I have followed the links to http://cms.parliament.uk/documents/uploa...

and the publication is not there.. I am also unable to find any reference to authorisation of a publication scheme in Hansard.. could you advise ?

This could be one of the reasons why members ended up with such problems with information publication ???

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS