Project Manager - Transformation Delivery Libraries

The request was successful.

Dear Kent County Council,

Please provide all communications in relation to the post of "Project Manager - Transformation Delivery Libraries" advertised on Friday 27th June 2014 at jobsinkent.com. Please also include any job descriptions that had been drawn up and any communications in relation to the advert's removal.

Yours faithfully,

Ian Clark

Kent County Council

Dear Mr Clark

 

Thank you for your email below.

 

Kent County Council acknowledges your request for information under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Assuming KCC holds this information, we
will endeavour to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later
than 4^th August 2014 (20 working days from date of receipt).

 

We will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/14/1277 - in any
communication regarding this particular request.

 

Best regards

 

Alan Dix

Information Access Officer

Information Resilience & Transparency Team

Strategic & Corporate Services, Governance & Law,

Kent County Council, Room 2.71, Sessions House, County Road, Maidstone,
ME14 1XQ

Tel: 01622 221652, Internal 7000 1652, Fax: 01622 696075

http://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-council...

 

 

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Kent County Council

Dear Mr Clark

 

Thank you for your request for information made under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) 2000, relating to the Project Manager -
Transformation Delivery Libraries vacancy. I am pleased to provide our
response below:

 

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with any communications as
this information is not held. I can confirm that the post was advertised
without reference to Libraries, the job was not withdrawn because of the
content of the job description but because it was not supposed to be
advertised. 

 

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied
with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints
process; details can be found at this link
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-council...
on our website. Please quote reference FOI/14/1277.

 

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should
you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the
Information Commissioner’s website [2]http://www.ico.org.uk/complaints.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Laura Pronger

Information Access Officer

Information Resilience & Transparency Team

Strategic and Corporate Services, Governance & Law

Kent County Council, Room 2.71, Sessions House, County Road, Maidstone,
ME14 1XQ. 

Telephone: 01622 694261, Internal: 7000 4261, Fax: 01622 696075

http://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-council...

 

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Dear Kent County Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Kent County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Project Manager - Transformation Delivery Libraries'.

In responding to my request, I was advised that the advert that was the subject of this request did not make "reference to libraries" when it clearly does:

http://clikent.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/...

I consequently find it hard to believe there was *no* internal communication regarding this advert, either in its placement or its removal.

As a result, I request an interval review into this matter.

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,

Ian Clark

Kent County Council

Dear Mr Clark

Thank you for your email.

I am sorry you are unhappy with KCC’s response to your request for information and that you do not believe that there are no records of internal communications about the post advertised.

An independent officer who was not involved with your original request will investigate your complaint and review our original response on behalf of the Head of Paid Service. Their reply will be forthcoming within 20 working days from receipt (by 2nd September 2014)

However, I would like to clarify that the comment - "I can confirm that the post was advertised without reference to Libraries, the job was not withdrawn because of the content of the job description but because it was not supposed to be advertised" - did not mean that there was no reference to Libraries in the advert, but that the advert was placed by KCC's agent without consulting with Libraries first.

Best regards

Caroline Dodge
Team Leader, Information Resilience & Transparency Team,
Strategic & Corporate Services, Governance & Law
Kent County Council, Room 2.71, Sessions House, County Road, Maidstone, ME14 1XQ
Tel: 01622 221652, Internal 7000 1652,
Fax: 01622 696075
http://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-council...

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Dear Kent County Council,

Regarding:

"However, I would like to clarify that the comment - "I can confirm that the post was advertised without reference to Libraries, the job was not withdrawn because of the content of the job description but because it was not supposed to be advertised" - did not mean that there was no reference to Libraries in the advert, but that the advert was placed by KCC's agent without consulting with Libraries first."

Many thanks for the clarification regarding this part of the response. It wasn't clear in the reply that this is what was meant. It might have been clearer if it had said "without referring the advert to KCC Libraries" due to the ambiguity of the word "reference" in this context.

Yours faithfully,

Ian Clark

Kent County Council

4 Attachments

Dear Mr Clark

 

Thank you for your email. I am sorry you were unhappy with our response to
your request for information.

 

Our handling of your request has been reviewed by independent officers in
KCC’s Human Resources team and this is their response.

 

The review process has identified that there was some e-mail
correspondence in relation to the proposed Project Manager role in the
Libraries, Registration & Archives Service. Please accept my apologies for
the error contained in the response to your original request for
information.

 

The post that was briefly advertised resulted from a review of the
Libraries, Registration & Archives Service being carried out as part of
the County Council’s transformation programme “Facing the Challenge”.  The
review is one of 12 being conducted as part of an ongoing market
engagement and service review stream of activity. A paper was taken to the
County Council meeting in May 2014, and the preferred option was to
establish a Kent Trust to operate the service.  The paper can be found at
the following link and is agenda item 12.

[1]https://democracy.kent.gov.uk/documents/...

 

As a result of this published decision, there was a need to consider the
best way for the service to contribute to the production of a full
business case which is the next stage of the process and additional
resource was considered.  As a result, an exchange of e-mails occurred on
9 June 2014 between KCC and Connect2Kent (C2K).  C2K provide a ‘vendor
managed service’ for Kent County Council in respect of the provision of
temporary agency workers and other non-directly employed workers.  The
e-mail correspondence relates to setting up a meeting to discuss the
proposed Project Manager role.  Copies of the e-mail are attached.

 

On 19 June 2014, a meeting took place involving KCC and C2K.   The meeting
was an initial face to face briefing on the requirements of the project
management role and the type of candidate that would be required.  The
intention of the meeting was to explore the range of possible candidates
available and therefore inform decision making about how to take this
particular project forward.

 

An advert that appeared on the [2]jobsinkent.com site (along with other
media) was placed by C2K without the involvement and approval from KCC. 
This was not what was required and is the reason for the advert’s
subsequent withdrawal.  When our initial response to your FOI stated “the
post was advertised without reference to Libraries” this was meant to
convey that it was placed without reference to the Libraries, Registration
and Archives service.  Clearly the advert does mention Libraries and it is
unfortunate that the language in our original response was ambiguous, for
which I apologise.

 

The request to C2K to ensure that the advert was removed with immediate
effect was made by KCC on 30 June 2014.  The request was made by telephone
and e-mail.  A copy of the e-mail is attached.

 

For your information, the post of project manager has recently been filled
by an internal candidate. 

 

I trust that this explanation now satisfies your complaint. However, if
you are still unhappy, you can appeal to the Information Commissioner, who
oversees compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of
what you need to do, should you wish to pursue this course of action, are
available from the Information Commissioner’s website
[3]http://ico.org.uk/concerns, or you can phone the ICO Helpline on 0303
123 1113.

 

Best regards

 

Caroline Dodge | Team Leader | Information Resilience & Transparency Team
| Kent County Council | Room 2.71, Sessions House, Maidstone, ME14
1XQ | Internal: 7000 1652 | External: 01622 221652 |
[4]http://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-council...
|

 

 

 

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