Prospective use of MMU site for a Primary School for Beaver Road Academy Trust

Waiting for an internal review by Manchester City Council of their handling of this request.

Dear Manchester City Council,

a) Can you please provide copies of all documentation / communications / papers both internally at the council and additionally externally with partners / schools / Department for Education / any others, concerning all aspects of plans for a two or three form primary school on the MMU site from the 19th May 2014 to today's date?

b) Please provide a record of meetings of officers of MCC and partners and attendees concerning this matter in the period 19th May 2014 to today's date?

c) Can you please provide data for the number of primary school places available in Didsbury schools (per year group if possible) at the start of the academic years September 1, 2012, 2013 & 2014. For the sake of definition of Didsbury for this request I take it to be Didsbury, West Didsbury East Didsbury.

Yours faithfully,

Maire Redmond

Manchester City Council

Dear Ms Redmond

Re: Request for Information - Reference No: CHS/9Q4KTC

Thank you for your request for information received by Manchester City
Council on 21st October 2014.

Please note that it may take up to 20 working days (approximately 4 weeks)
for the Council to consider your request and to provide a formal response.

If this timescale needs to be extended to consider an exemption you will be
notified and kept informed.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Cath Cryer
Information Compliance Unit
Democratic Services
PO Box 532
Town Hall
Albert Square
Manchester
M60 2LA

Email: [Manchester City Council request email]
Website: www.manchester.gov.uk

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Dear Manchester City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Manchester City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Prospective use of MMU site for a Primary School for Beaver Road Academy Trust'.

Manchester City Council have breached the 20 day time limit in which to respond.

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,

maire redmond

Manchester City Council

Dear Ms Redmond

Re: Request for Information - Internal Review - Reference No: CHS/
9Q4KTC-IR

Thank you for your email dated 27th November 2014 regarding the Council's
response to your request for information.

Your email will be treated as a request for internal review of that
original decision and will be dealt with in accordance with the Council’s
Access to Information Complaint Procedure. The procedure is available on
the Council’s web site at

http://www.manchester.gov.uk/downloads/d...

Please note your request will be handled as speedily as possible and a
response should be issued no later than 29th December 2014.

Yours sincerely

Cath Cryer
Information Compliance Unit
Democratic Services
PO Box 532
Town Hall
Albert Square
Manchester
M60 2LA

Email: [Manchester City Council request email]
Website: www.manchester.gov.uk

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Manchester City Council

6 Attachments

Dear Maire Redmond

Please find attached the Council's response to your recent request for
information.

Yours sincerely

Amanda Corcoran
Senior Strategy Manager
Children and Families Directorate

Manchester City Council, Town Hall Extension, Manchester, M60 2LA
www.manchester.gov.uk

http://www.manchester.gov.uk/meetings/me...

(See attached file: CHS_9Q4KTC Response.doc) (See attached file:
20140829 - Didsbury East Primary.pdf)(See attached file: CHS9Q4KTC - Figs
2012 - 2014.doc)(See attached file: Communication DTZl.doc)(See attached
file: 14 07 18 - file note (released).pdf)(See attached file: Email
29.8.2014.doc)

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Dear Manchester City Council,

On the 10th December 2014, your Senior Officer, Amanda Corcoran responded to a Freedom of Information request that I made to your council.

May I please ask you from your responses for some clarity to your replies.

From my question a) Can you confirm that the information you have supplied is all that resides at the council for the period requested and that no other communications exist?

On my question b) can you confirm that the only meeting that occurred in the period requested is the one you have alluded to and which was attended by DTZ personnel? If there were others can you please state why these were not recorded in your reply and if there were others can you please provide details of them as per the original request?

Yours faithfully,

Maire Redmond

Manchester City Council

Dear Ms Redmond

I am writing in response to your request for an internal review of how your
freedom of information request reference CHS/9Q4KTC was handled and also
your request for clarification of our response to the internal review
CHS/9KAFP8-IR. I have dealt with these matters together as they concern
very similar information.

Ref: CHS/9Q4KTC-IR

In your original request, dated 21/10/2014, you wrote:

a) Can you please provide copies of all documentation /
communications / papers both internally at the council
and additionally externally with partners / schools /
Department for Education / any others, concerning all
aspects of plans for a two or three form primary school
on the MMU site from the 19th May 2014 to today's date?

b) Please provide a record of meetings of officers of MCC
and partners and attendees concerning this matter in the
period 19th May 2014 to today's date?

c) Can you please provide data for the number of primary
school places available in Didsbury schools (per year
group if possible) at the start of the academic years
September 1, 2012, 2013 & 2014. For the sake of
definition of Didsbury for this request I take it to be
Didsbury, West Didsbury East Didsbury.

This request repeated your concerns that you thought Manchester City
Council had not released the relevant information/clarification
sought. Further searches were undertaken and other relevant
information was found. This was released to you on 11/12/2014.The
delay was caused by our considerations on whether any FOI exemptions
applied to the information provided by a third party. There was a
further delay awaiting final management sign-off.

Ref: CHS/9KAFP8-IR

You requested an internal review of the time taken for the Council to
respond to your email of 6 July 2014 seeking clarification of our
response to the original request and I responded on 20 October. On
the same day you replied as follows:

May I please state that you appear not to have fully
answered the first part of question one which is now
repeated.

1) You state - other than the one email you have supplied
as being stated 'documented' can you please confirm then
whether any other communications of any kind have
occurred between any officers of MCC and Beaver Road
Primary School and the dates of any meetings and
attendees?

From my original question of 19.05.14 which
follows........

a) Can you please provide copies of all documentation /
communications both internally at the council and
additionally externally with partners / schools /
Department for Education / others, that you have had so
far concerning all aspects of plans for a two or three
form primary school on the MMU site from the 22nd January
2014 to today's date?

You provided a copy of one singular email.

Can you therefore for total clarity confirm that other
than this one email, no communications in the period
occurred as requested in a) above.

I have not been able to find a response to this request for
clarification. Please accept my apologies for this oversight. The
most likely explanation seems to be that the need to respond to this
particular email was overlooked as officers concentrated on your
further request CHS/9Q4KTC, which covered the same topic and did
result in additional information being found and provided to you on
11/12/2014.

The officers involved have confirmed that you have now received all
the information held by the Council on this matter and therfore it is
our view that both of your requests are now complete.

On 14/01/2015 the Council received notification from the Information
Commissioner's Office as follows:

The Information Commissioner has received a complaint
from Mrs Redmond stating that they have not received a
decision regarding the internal review they requested on
20/10/14. The relevant correspondence in respect of this
request for information can be found at
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/n...
.

The only email we received from you on 20/10/2014 was the
clarification request above. We have no record of a request for a
further internal review on that date.

In conclusion, my review has identified a number of points where our
handling of your requests has fallen significantly short of the
standards of timeliness we aim to achieve. It seems likely that, in
part, the two separate series of requests, follow-ups and internal
reviews concerning essentially the same information resulted in a
level of confusion as to which request was being dealt with at any
one time. In turn this led to some of your emails being overlooked.

It is my view that we might have handled your requests more
effectively if we had considered them as a whole. I have asked the
Information Governance Manager to consider how we might improve our
procedures in future where we receive substantially similar requests
from the same person.

If you remain unhappy with the response you can exercise your right
to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF .

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

Yours sincerely

Kath Smythe
Strategic Business Partner - Directorate for Children & Families

[email address]

www.manchester.gov.uk

Manchester City Council | P.O.Box 536 | Town Hall | Albert Square |
Manchester | M60 2AF

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Dear Manchester City Council,

Thank you for your further response which is quite surprising considering comments made in meetings of the Beaver Road Primary School that follow shortly.

I note that you have further stated there is no more communications between the council and the school in the two periods requested that you have now conflated? As an example where is the pdf projection from John Francoli /CFSC/MCC 29/08/2014 17:33?

The extremely limited correspondence that you have supplied is not congruous with the minutes that follow, nor indeed with what has been said by the school staff in Didsbury for many months.

On the 30th June 2014 the Governing Board of Beaver Road Primary school reported at a meeting that 'the new Beaver Road school have now been officially passed'.

On the 22nd September 2014 the Governing Board of Beaver Road reported at a meeting the following.

'Q. What information is being given on the new school? Parents know about Didsbury CE but may not know about the new Beaver Road school. There will be a strategic meeting where timing and planning is discussed. If the LA is looking at a September 2016 opening, recruitment planning needs to start now. There has been no demolition on the site yet'.

'Q. Will the new school open with a Reception class? If there are waiting lists in other years? It has not been decided how it will be done. Taking large numbers from the waiting list would have an impact on other local schools. Parents could be informed, information could probably be put on the website, but DH would have to check with the LA.'

May I ask the council to consider once more if any other communications exist in the two periods between yourselves and the school?

With regards to your comments on the Information Commissioner and link, perhaps I can invite you to read the link again in particular the dates of 27th November and 3rd February 2015. The council are well aware of their obligations to the FOIA and the time guidance to respond to internal reviews which you breached.

Yours faithfully,

Maire Redmond

Dear Manchester City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Manchester City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Prospective use of MMU site for a Primary School for Beaver Road Academy Trust'.

I wrote to you on the 22nd February 2015 and you have not bothered to respond. Section 10(1) of the FOIA requires a public authority to comply with section 1(1) within 20 working days.

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,

Maire Redmond