Dear Herefordshire Council,

Please browse to Wirral Leaks, an increasingly popular Wirral-based blog, and to the post dated 5th October 2013, entitled:

"Bullying Is An Ugg-ly Business"

http://wirralleaks.wordpress.com/2013/10...

This blog has been the source of entirely accurate information in the past and worryingly, this particular thread reports that an unnamed officer of Wirral Council has recently been compensated in the sum of £48,000 (tax free) -following what appears to have been an internal dispute / complaint.

I would like you to provide details of ALL Herefordshire Council officers who have been in receipt of similar payments, whether they be hidden, or declared and scrutinised by members, in these or similar circumstances.

Please provide:

1. Date of payment
2. Amount of payment
3. Reason for payment
4. Have the payment / circumstances been declared publicly?
5. Subject matter e.g. Racial Discrimination; Bullying &
Harassment; Dignity at Work Complaint, etc.
6. Copies of reports; aide memoirs; emails; letters; memoranda; notes; meeting minutes; meeting notes (verbatim or non-verbatim), whether in written or electronic format, and connected to meetings, council scrutiny committees, investigations (internal or external), and / or the processing of any payments.
7. Outcome - e.g. whether employees involved are still employed by the council.
8. Disciplinary Action involved, if any.
9. Number of employees involved in dispute / complaint
10. Number of employees in receipt of payment(s)

I am not asking for names or job positions / sections / departments as I'm aware these details could be used to identify employees and thereby infringe upon their personal privacy. Please redact such identifying information in line with the Data Protection Act.

However, please do not overstep the mark by redacting e.g. the quantities in public money that may have been paid out to officers. Such details are vital to the legitimate and compelling public interest.

Please be kind enough to acknowledge receipt of this FoI request as soon as possible,

Yours faithfully,

Paul Cardin

Dear Freedom Of Information (Council),

Please confirm you will be addressing this FoI request. The current position looks confused as your covering letter is an acknowledgement, and the attachment is phrased as a response but clearly isn't,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Freedom Of Information (Council),

Thanks for your response. In the interests of keeping this query below the "costs" threshold, please return answers for the last two financial years, beginning April 2012 and ending part way through the current financial year i.e. November 2013,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Freedom Of Information (Council),

To clarify my last message, I am referring to an end date of 8th November 2013 or the date I lodged this request,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Freedom Of Information (Council),

I do apologise. Please amend my request to take in the financial year commencing 2010.

i.e. April 2010 through to November 8th 2013,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Herefordshire Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Herefordshire Council's handling of my FOI request 'Payments to Council officers, scrutinised or otherwise'.

6th December has come and gone, but there has been no full response from Herefordshire Council, who are now in breach of the Act.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

Yours faithfully,

Paul Cardin

Dear Access To Information,

Thank you for your responses to my initial request, which was 1 working day late and to my request for an internal review, which appears to amount to an apology / justification for being late, and not an internal review by a senior officer tasked with it, in accordance with the Act.

I do not believe you have been thorough in your response, but I don't believe I can ask for another internal review. For this reason, please take this message as notice that I will be appealing to the Information Commissioner's Office in the following terms.

Here is a link to an important and I believe relevant Section of the FOI Act (Section 77):

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000...

This deals with the offence of altering records with intent to prevent disclosure.

I have a very different understanding of the facts attached to these issues and will attempt to list them in a series of detailed statements. These are sequential and relate directly to the questions asked in the original request and the responses that you as the data controller have provided.

1. Date of Payment (the number of payments is at least FIVE)

Payment ONE - Between end of October 2012 and 7th November 2012

Payment TWO - Between 15th and 20th December 2012

Payment THREE - uncertain, but unlikely to be March 2013, as stated in your response.

Payment FOUR - 26th July 2012

Payment FIVE - Between 26th July and end of August 2012

2. Amount of payment

As you have stated an uncertain number of recipients of payments AND appear to have incorrectly stated the month of "March 2013" as the date of all payments, your ability to rely upon Section 40(2) is now diminished and questionable.

As there were actually at least FIVE separate payments, this increases the likelihood that the sum involved could travel well into six figures. I believe there would be a legitimate and compelling public interest in knowing this amount, not just because Section 77 (altering records with intent to prevent disclosure) appears to have become engaged, but also because there appear to have been no checks and balances in the form of elected member scrutiny on these payments.

3. Reason for payment

(see 2. above)

4. Have the payment circumstances been declared publicly?

The legitimate public interest becomes more compelling if the data controller has sought to conceal what could be large, unscrutinised payments of public money from public oversight without good reason.

5. Subject matter e.g. Racial Discrimination; Bullying & Harassment; Dignity at Work Complaint, etc.

Whilst the desire to protect the council's reputation is understandable from an operational point of view, it should not be done as a first resort, and at the expense of the public interest. If bullying and harassment is occurring between public servants (and what looks like a large number of public servants) this should not be expediently concealed from the wider public using Section 40 of the FOI Act, which exists only to protect sensitive personal information - and not potentially scandalising events.

6. Copies of reports; aide memoirs; emails; letters; memoranda; notes; meeting minutes; meeting notes (verbatim or non-verbatim), whether in written or electronic format; and connected to meetings, council scrutiny committees; investigations (internal or external), and / or the processing of any payments.

These items of correspondence / records could be carefully redacted in order to serve the legitimate and compelling public interest described above AND to protect the data privacy of the employees concerned. As stated earlier, if the misuse of Section 40(2) and Section 77 begin to play a prominent role here, the public interest will grow and the lack of public oversight to date will become a factor. Further, the data controller has made an admission that only SOME of the data involved is sensitive personal data.

7. Outcome – e.g. whether employees involved are still employed by the council.

Please refer to above link (Section 77 of FOIA - altering records with intent to prevent disclosure).

In fact, 6 members of staff remain, 5 of whom are classed as disabled.

In fact, 2 members of staff departed the council.

In fact, 6 further members of staff were involved but are not referred to or accounted for within your responses to date.

8. Disciplinary action involved, if any.

Grievance settlements in themselves would indicate guilt on the part of one or more employees. The question has to be asked "Why was there no disciplinary action". The public interest and public oversight, if there were any, would demand that the council's reputation does not "sweep all before it" and obviate the need to follow internal policies and procedures as regards a compelling case for disciplinary action e.g. in this case, the bullying of disabled members of staff.

9. Number of employees involved in dispute / complaint.

Please refer to above link (Section 77 of FOIA - altering records with intent to prevent disclosure).

Including the 3 (three) members of staff accused, the number of employees involved in the complaint is 11 (ELEVEN)

10. Number of employees in receipt of payment(s).

These figures only appear to include payments made to staff who brought the grievance. Correct, democratic public oversight demands to know whether payments have been made to any of the other 6 staff involved.

You are welcome to respond with further clarification, but please be advised that an appeal to the ICO is now in the pipeline,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Access To Information,

Thanks. Your receipt of my internal review request was 11th December 2013. I will expect to hear from you on or before 1st January 2014 (or 28th January 2014 in the extreme).

Season's Greetings,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Access To Information,

According to correspondence received, your organisation received my request for internal review on 11th December 2014.

In the absence of any request for a time extension, this has now run overdue and beyond the 20 working day time period permitted within the Act.

If a response is not with me by end of day tomorrow, 10th January 2014, I will be appealing to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Thank you for your time,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Access To Information,

I'm afraid sending copies of acknowledgment letters that are nearly a month old is not serving anybody's interests, least of all the public.

Nowhere have you acknowledged the fact that this request has not been addressed and has now run well overdue.

With this in mind, I will now appeal to the ICO,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Access To Information,

By now, not having met the 20 day deadline, you should be advising me the reason for the delay and stating that you require extra time.

Even if you reply and do this, you are not permitted to exceed 40 working days,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Access To Information,

Thank you for your response, however the 20 day deadline has NOT just passed.

In fact the [NETWORKDAYS] function within Microsoft Excel (which I recommend you should use) informs me that the 20 working days you had available to deal with and respond to this request expired on 7th January 2014. (starting date = 11th December 2013 - or date of your receipt of internal review request).

By my calculations, you now have until 4th February to deal with and respond to this request,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Access To Information,

p.s. Quoting "staff capacity" as a justification for extending response times is NOT supported within the FOI Act,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin

Dear Access To Information,

Despite availing yourselves of an extended time period for this request, you have failed to furnish the requested information within the 40 working days stated.

I am now forced to consider appealing this to the Information Commissioner's Office.

I do understand that this is a complex query, however your organisation should be resourced correctly to meet and address such legitimate and reasonable public requests as and when they arise.

I will allow you two further working days to provide the information i.e. a full response to my request for an internal review.

If the information does not arrive before the deadline of 5pm Friday 14th February 2014, I will be appealing this case to the Information Commissioner,

Yours sincerely,

Paul Cardin