Request For Information Records
Dear Stockport Borough Council,
Please provide me with a copy of the Request for Information LOG from the Principle Contractor BAM to the Client SBC for the Vale View School Project.
I would expect to find this RFI LOG as an integral part of the As Built Health and Safety Files and retained in PDF format on the Project Management Database.
Yours faithfully,
alan m dransfield
Dear Mr Dransfield,
Thank you for your request for information below which has been given
reference FOI 4947. Please quote this on any correspondence regarding your
request.
Stockport Council will respond to your request within 20 working days. If
there will be a charge for disbursements e.g. photocopying in order to
provide the information, we will inform you as soon as possible to see if
you wish to proceed; however such charges are usually waived if they
amount to less than £10.
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
Dear Mr Dransfield,
I am writing in response to your request for information below (Ref 4947).
The response to your request has been prepared by the relevant Council
service and is as follows:
No RFI Log was used during the course of the works. Information requests
were addressed by exchanges of emails. Had this system been employed, the
document would not be one that would have formed a part of the Health &
Safety file.
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request for
information, you are entitled to ask for an internal review; however you
must do so within 40 working days of the date of this response. Any
internal review will be carried out by a senior member of staff who was
not involved with your original request. To ask for an internal review,
contact [1][email address] in the first instance.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of any internal review, you are
entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner. To do so, contact:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
[2]www.ico.gov.uk
01625 545 745
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
Dear FOI Officer,
Since you had no RFI Log and all design changes were controlled by emails ,can you please provide me with a copy of each and every design change email, i.e. request and response.
with thanks
Yours sincerely,
alan m dransfield
Dear Mr Dransfield,
Thank you for your request for information which has been given reference
5028. Please quote this on any correspondence regarding your request.
Stockport Council will respond to your request within 20 working days. If
there will be a charge for disbursements e.g. photocopying in order to
provide the information, we will inform you as soon as possible to see if
you wish to proceed; however such charges are usually waived if they
amount to less than £10.
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
Stockport Council
Town Hall
Stockport
SK1 3XE
Dear Mr Dransfield,
I am writing in response to your request for information below (ref 5028).
The response to your request has been prepared by the relevant Council
service and is as follows:
We are unable to provide the information you have requested. Emails
containing the information you have requested are not stored separately to
other emails relating to the project; it is also the case with some emails
that such requests were made within emails discussing other topics and are
stored accordingly. These emails are stored in date order only and have
been refined as much as possible for the purposes of your request; however
there are still 2467 emails held which could potentially contain the
information you have requested. Each of these emails would have to be read
to see if they contain information relevant to your request (as there is
no search term which could be used to filter them) then the relevant
information extracted for the purposes of your request. At a conservative
estimate of one minute per email, this equates to approximately 41 hours
of officer time.
As you may be aware, under section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA), public authorities such as Stockport Council are not obliged
to comply with requests for information if they estimate that the cost of
complying with the request would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’. The
Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees)
Regulations 2004 set an ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 for public authorities
outside Central Government, which equates to 18 hours’ work at a statutory
rate of £25 per hour. As outlined above, we estimate that determining
whether we hold the relevant information then locating, retrieving and
extracting it would exceed this limit; therefore we have not provided you
with this information.
If you are able to refine your request, for example by asking for
information from a six-month period, we may be able to provide some of the
information you have requested as this would reduce the number of emails
which would have to be examined to extract information.
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request for
information, you are entitled to ask for an internal review; however you
must do so within 40 working days of the date of this response. Any
internal review will be carried out by a senior member of staff who was
not involved with your original request. To ask for an internal review,
contact [1][email address] in the first instance.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of any internal review, you are
entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner. To do so, contact:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
[2]www.ico.gov.uk
01625 545 745
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
Dear FOI Officer,
I do not accept your statement that the search for the sought after data would exceed the government ceiling. Such information ,i.e design change orders should be be available within minutes.
I believe the SBC are obstructing my FOI request.
In the first instance I request a review please
Yours sincerely,
alan m dransfield
alan m dransfield (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Couldnt agree MORE with you Sheila and that on my HIT list for 2012
Dear FOI Officer,
It is SOP for PA to maintain a FOI DISCLOSURE Log.
Can you please explain to me why the SBC does not maontain such a log
Yours sincerely,
alan m dransfield
Dear Mr Dransfield,
Thank you for your request for information which has been given reference
5123. Please quote this on any correspondence regarding your request.
Stockport Council will respond to your request within 20 working days. If
there will be a charge for disbursements e.g. photocopying in order to
provide the information, we will inform you as soon as possible to see if
you wish to proceed; however such charges are usually waived if they
amount to less than £10.
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
Dear Mr Dransfield,
I am writing in response to your request for an internal review of the
decision not to provide the information you have requested in case number
FO1 5028.
The review has been carried out by Alison Cresswell, Head of 14-19
Services, and is below:
Dear Mr Dransfield,
I have conducted an internal review by examining your initial request,
speaking with the staff involved with handling your request and
considering the response given by the relevant Council Service.
In one of your previous requests, FOI 4947, you asked for the RFI log.
This was not provided because the principal contractor confirmed that no
RFI log was used during the course of the work and that the information
which you requested was contained within emails instead. Furthermore,
were such a log to have existed, it would not have formed part of the
Health and Safety file.
As a result of this response, you then requested these emails, dealt with
as FOI 5028. The Council did not provide the requested information because
it estimated that the time taken to complete the work would exceed the
‘appropriate limit’, which means that the request did not have to be
complied with under section 12 Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), as
explained in the original response. The reason for this was that the
emails are not stored by the categorisation of 'design change' and
therefore, to provide the relevant ones would require reading 2467 emails
to find the ones which contain the information requested. Based on one
minute per email, some of which would contain attachments, the estimate of
the time this would take exceeded the 'appropriate limit.'
In your request for an internal review, you stated that you believe the
information should be available ‘in minutes’; however as explained above
and in the original response to your request, this is not the case. The
information is stored in emails, under the project title, then
sub-categorised into folders. None of the folders are entitled ‘design
change’; the emails contained within each folder would therefore need to
be investigated separately as previously stated. The emails can be sorted
into date order.
To conclude, I have found that Council's original response was correct
since it clearly explains the rationale for the decision as being on the
grounds of exceeding the 'appropriate limit' and details how that decision
had been arrived at. Moreover, there is an offer as to how this situation
might be overcome, were you to refine your request for information. I
agree with the original rationale and calculations that make the cost
of complying with the request exceed the ‘appropriate limit’. Therefore,
as outlined originally, the Council has not provided you with this
information.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of this internal review, you are
entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner. To do so, contact:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
[1]www.ico.gov.uk
01625 545 745
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
alan m dransfield (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
The SBC could have offered to charge me for all their email which they did not.
Unfortunately the new WDTK system does not allow me to reply directly to the SBC?
Dear FOI Officer,
Thank you for your REVIEW explanation and it has confirmed to me that the SBC did not have the correct fiscal or project management tools in place for the Vale View School.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I understand such emails come under the FOI Act,so please send me all 2467 email on a CD.
You have confirmed that a Request for Information Log (RFIL) does not exist,no wonder the school budget went thru the roof because it would appear that the safeguards were NOT in place for Fiscal Accountability and Transparency.
A RFIL is SOP for such large projects and it enables the Project Management Team to monitor costs at the touch of a button because the Design Change Orders are controlled by the RFI system.
You have asked me to refine my request which is to send ALL emails via CD.
I appreciate someone may have go thru the the emails but I dont accept it would take 1minute per email to define RFI, more like 5 seconds per email or go thru the email file records and remove the sensitive or commercial email and send me the remaining.
I would also be prepared to refine my request for the Design Change Order emails only because SURELY the DCO are and have been seperated?!.
As a lessons learned, may I suggest the SBC ensure a professional Project Management Database is set up on all future large projects and then the SBC will be able to uphold their legal obligation to the FOI Act.
I also do not accept your estimation of sorting thru the email to retract the sought after data not unless you are using trained monkeys as office staff. I dont wish to be rude but what a feeble excuse to say it would take ONE MINUTE for each email.
I am NOT PC literate and I bet I could detract 30-40 email per minute.
I will gladly come into your office and under supervision detract the sought after email?
At the worst case scenario (WCS), a trained PC user should be able to recall ALL the relevant emails in 6to 8 hrs at £25 +£200 and as I say, the WCS.
with thanks
Yours sincerely,
alan m dransfield
Dear FOI Officer,
Further to my eaier reply,please advise me WHAT SYSTEM was used for the Project Management System (PMS)on the Vale View school
I need the specific name of the electronic PMS
Yours sincerely,
alan m dransfield
Sheila Oliver (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Mr Dransfield
I could go to Stockport Town Hall and read through the emails. If cost is an issue here, surely that would be cheaper than you taking them to an Information Commission Tribunal. If cost is an issue here, as they say, and when we are dealing with a matter of children's safety, then surely this is a solution acceptable to everyone.
Councillor Goddard got very cross with me on Monday (so unusual that), because he said just one ceiling tile fell off at the school. That may well be the case, but while there is this Iron Curtain of secrecy, how can we tell what is going on there? Remember, Goddard, Weldon, Derbyshire, Webb, Sager et al said the site wasn't contaminated. It was entirely contaminated. I find it hard to trust anything that is said by them.
Councillor Goddard repeated in the full council meeting last Thursday that just one ceiling tile fell off and the lovely Jen from the Stockport Express tweeted the meeting live, so it is all up there on the Stockport Express website.
I believe the local councillors have now climbed out of their teapot and are demanding which Executive Councillor - Weldon or Bodsworth - is going to take responsibility for all that is happening at the toxic waste dump school - the collapse, the bullying, the children being taken out in large numbers, the police complaining about the traffic dangers, the local residents having to carry new sofas possibly over quarter of a mile to get them into their houses. If the local councillors are asking questions, it is because local people are giving them stick over this issue and with the local elections looming, they need to be seen to be doing something. I have raised all these issues over the past five to six years and been branded vexatious for doing so.
I can't help simply being ahead of the game; I really can't.
Sheila
alan m dransfield (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Mrs Oliver, that is a very kind gesture indeed and if you do have the time to visit the SBC office you could go thru the 2467 emails and instruct the SBC PC Operator to retract the email everytime your saw one which refered to Design Changes Order (DCO).
Why didnt I think of that and yes you are ahead of the game?!
Many thanks for you kind offer to assist.
I would evisage it would'nt take more that couple hours MAX.
Then the SBC could transfer theses email onto a CD and Bobs Your Uncle and Charlies your aunt??!!
Dear FOI Officer,
I am prepared to downsize my FOI to include the Design Change orders DCO from Jan last year to July.
Yours sincerely,
alan m dransfield
alan m dransfield (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Its quite evident that the SBC are not aware with
1. FOI Guidance Note #8
2.Section 46 of the FOI Act 2000.
The SBC are not isolated in painting a picture of their staff trawing thru a mountain of paperwork as to meet their FOI Obligations.
Items 1&2 clear require ELECTRONIC DATABASE for Government Projects.
Dear Mr Dransfield,
Thank you for your request for information which has been given reference
5208. Please quote this on any correspondence regarding your request.
Stockport Council will respond to your request within 20 working days. If
there will be a charge for disbursements e.g. photocopying in order to
provide the information, we will inform you as soon as possible to see if
you wish to proceed; however such charges are usually waived if they
amount to less than £10.
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
[1]http://www.stockport.gov.uk
Sheila Oliver (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Dear Not Ms Naven
Please let me know when next week to attend - what time and where - and I shall trawl through the emails giving you a list of the ones which are relevant to Mr Dransfield for you to forward on to him.
Kind regards
Sheila
Sheila Oliver (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Mr Dransfield
This is the text of an article from last week's Stockport Express:-
"Furious governors are demanding to know why their £8m super-school is still unfinished a term after opening.
The governing body of Vale View primary school in Reddish has written to the Council with a catalogue of 'serious concerns'.
Governors at the state-of-the art 550 pupil school - which opened in September - have called the situation 'unacceptable'.
Last month the school was evacuated after a ceiling to an office collapsed.
Governors now say fixtures and fittings keep falling off and IT equipment has not been correctly installed.
They complain workmen are still on site nearly six months after opening and slam 'a multitude of outstanding items not completed'.
Their letter says: "When can we expect an end to this situation? We have been patient, tolerant, understanding and accommodating so far, and appreciate all the hard work so many people have put into getting our school up and running, but the situation is now becoming not only untenable, but simply unacceptable."
At their latest meeting the board of governors resolved to write to the town hall and did so shortly before Christmas.
They complain windowsills and door stoppers keep dropping off, there are no play-ground markings, boxes of computers are still not unpacked or installed, and the ventilation shafts do not work.
Health and safety problems are raised around the intallation of multimedia whiteboards and IT equipment is slammed as 'inadequate and insufficient'.
The letter adds: "Weekly neetings between staff here and the contractors to update on what is happening are now becoming entirely non-productive."
Coun Stuart Bodsworth, executive member for children and young people, said: "The new school provides an exellent education facility which benefits the Reddish community.
"We are aware there are some issues needing further work at the building.
"However, it is common for some works to continue during a 12-month period following completion of any building work.
"As part of their contract the builders are workingwith the school to ensure this work is undertaken at times which are most convenient to the school."
Mr Dransfield, given this letter was sent by the governors before Christmas and your request was refused mid-January, wouldn't you have expected that all those emails would have already have been gone through by the Council, given the serious safety issues raised, not least of which "the ventilation shafts do not work", given this is built on still gassing former toxic waste dump?
Sheila
Dear Mr Dransfield,
I am writing in response to your request for information below (ref 5123).
The response to your request has been prepared by the relevant Council
service and is as follows:
The Council holds no recorded information in relation to your request. A
disclosure log is not a requirement of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
and only forms part of the FOI publication scheme if a public authority
chooses to maintain a disclosure log. Any future considerations as to
whether or not the Council produces a disclosure log would be subject to
an analysis of the benefits to those who may use such a tool weighed
against the amount of public funds required to create and maintain a
useful disclosure log.
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request for
information, you are entitled to ask for an internal review; however you
must do so within 40 working days of the date of this response. Any
internal review will be carried out by a senior member of staff who was
not involved with your original request. To ask for an internal review,
contact [1][email address] in the first instance.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of any internal review, you are
entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner. To do so, contact:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
[2]www.ico.gov.uk
01625 545 745
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
Dear Mr Dransfield,
I am writing in response to your refined request for information following
the internal review for FOI (ref FOI 5028).
The information has been prepared by the relevant Council service and is
as attached
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request for
information, you are entitled to ask for an internal review; however you
must do so within 40 working days of the date of this response. Any
internal review will be carried out by a senior member of staff who was
not involved with your original request. To ask for an internal review,
contact [email address] in the first instance.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of any internal review, you are
entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner. To do so, contact:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
01625 545 745
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Service
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
Dear Phillipa Nazari,
Thank you for the emails . Can I now request the remaining emails on a new FOI request
with thanks
Yours sincerely,
alan m dransfield
Dear Mr Dransfield,
Thank you for your request for information which has been given reference
5303. Please quote this on any correspondence regarding your request.
Stockport Council will respond to your request within 20 working days. If
there will be a charge for disbursements e.g. photocopying in order to
provide the information, we will inform you as soon as possible to see if
you wish to proceed; however such charges are usually waived if they
amount to less than £10.
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Service
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
[1]http://www.stockport.gov.uk
Dear Mr Dransfield,
I am writing in response to your email below (Ref 5303).
Your email relates to two previous requests. Following your initial
request with reference FOI 5028 the Council refused to comply with your
request on the basis of cost, a decision which was upheld at the internal
review stage. You then submitted a refined request which was dealt with
under reference FOI 5208 for a subset of the emails you initially
requested. This request was answered in full and took 15 hours to comply
with. You have now - almost immediately - submitted another request for
the remaining emails you requested in your first request (under Ref 5028).
The Council legitimately refused your initial request on the basis of cost
because compliance would have far exceeded the appropriate limit of £450.
The FOI Act does not enable you to bypass this cost limit by splitting
your request and submitting two or more requests in succession to enable
you to obtain all the information you originally asked for.
The Council will not be complying with your new request below (ref 5303)
which asks for the remaining emails. As this request is for the same or
similar information to your previous request (ref 5208) and is on the same
topic, we are aggregating this request with your previous similar request
and will consider them as one for the purposes of cost. This is in line
with the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004 (the Fees Regulations). The Fees Regulations state
that two or more requests to one public authority can be aggregated for
the purposes of calculating costs if they are:
· by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public
authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
· for the same or similar information; and
· the subsequent request is received by the public authority
within 60 working days of the previous request.
The intention of this provision is to prevent individuals or organisations
evading the appropriate limit by dividing a request into smaller parts.
As we have previously explained, the appropriate limit of £450 equates to
18 hours’ work at a statutory rate of £25 per hour. The Council has
already spent 15 hours complying with your previous request dealt with
under reference FOI 5208 which was submitted on 15^th January 2012. Your
present request below which was submitted on 7^th February 2012 (ref FOI
5303) cannot be dealt with in three hours, as per the explanation
previously provided to you; therefore complying with this request as well
as your previous request would exceed the appropriate limit of £450
because the two requests combined would take longer than 18 hours to
comply with. This means that the Council does not have to comply with your
request by virtue of section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
If you require further information about the Fees Regulations or
aggregating requests, this is available from the Information
Commissioner’s Office [1]www.ico.gov.uk.
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request for
information, you are entitled to ask for an internal review; however you
must do so within 40 working days of the date of this response. Any
internal review will be carried out by a senior member of staff who was
not involved with your original request. To ask for an internal review,
contact [2][email address] in the first instance.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of any internal review, you are
entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner. To do so, contact:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
[3]www.ico.gov.uk
01625 545 745
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information Services
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
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Sheila Oliver (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Why not simply put all the emails up on the web? There can be no secrets any longer, no commercial confidentiality - the project is finished. They should bung everything up and you can trawl through them. Simples! They should do that now with all major planning projects, as it is not possible to have confidence that things are being done honestly or correctly in Stockport with regards to planning.
I have documentary evidence of several hundred houses apparently built illegally in the 1980s. They changed public open space to housing land in a secret meeting held behind closed doors with one senior councillor and one senior council officer. They didn't bother to change the Development Plan or consult on the matter. Greater Manchester Council complained bitterly to Stockport Council about this abuse - completely ignored. I have documentary evidence if anyone is interested.
We need to make sure planning is an open and lawful process in Stockport and that the needs of local people are taken into consideration. Are we there yet? Are we Buxton!
Sheila