Sarah Rapson vs Lin Homer

The request was refused by Home Office.

Dear Home Office,

The new Director General, Sarah Rapson sat in front of the HASC and spent most of her time promising the Committee how she was going to make sure that things improved at the Home Office. Using phrases like 'competency', transparency and customer care, Ms Rapson seemed to impress the Committee with her commitment to change. Needless to say, nothing has changed under her tenure - in fact it seems to have gotten even worse.

on the 18th September I sent a FOI request regarding Ms Rapson's policy for correspondence sent to her by MP's. The request was not answered in the stipulated statutory period, and I had to ask for a review (great customer service!) On the 28th October (FIVE WEEKS AFTER MY INITIAL REQUEST)I received a reply.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...

I asked a further question, which has been subsequently ignored too, even though there is a statutory requirement to answer.
Please could I now have a response to this further question - details in link above.
Further questions I have are as follows;

In reference to Ms Rapson's claim to make sure that the customer service was top of her list for improvement, could she explain why it took her FOUR MONTHS to answer a letter sent to her by my MP?
Could Ms Rapson also explaim to me how this letter was so spectacularly misread,(or perhaps not read at all), and information was subsequently requested from me when the information was already contained in the letter? Is this the improved competency?
Could Ms Rapson also explain why she has no statistics for the number of cases that she, herself, deals with for MP's? Is this part of her 'improvement' plan?
Could Ms Rapson explain why she has no response limit time for answering her correspondence? Is this also part of her improvement plan?
Could she, therefore confirm for me, that she does not have a policy of any kind in responding and dealing with MP's correspondence, as stated in her response to my 'review' request for my FOI request of the 18th September?
If she treats the MP's like this - what does she treat the poor members of the public like?
Furthermore;
Ms Rapson stated that she would be writing letters to the Committee in response to some of their questions, when she appeared before them on the 11th June.
Please could I have copies of these letters.
Please could I have copies of the last 10 internal memo's that Ms Rapson has sent inter-departmentally?
I look forward to the reply, which I will be sending on to the HASC.
Please could she supply me with copies
Yours faithfully,

CA Purkis

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Freedom Of Information Team ( IND ), Home Office

 

 

Dear C A Purkis

 

Thank you for your recent e mail concerning the above matter. We are
dealing with your enquiry and will respond in due course.

 

Regards

 

 

Information Management Services (IMS),

Corporate Services

Home Office

12th Floor Lunar House, 40 Wellesley Road, Croydon CR9 2BY

[1]www.gov.uk/home-office

 

 

 

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Wells Sarah, Home Office

1 Attachment

Dear C A Purkis

 

Please find attached response to FOI request as detailed below.

 

Regards

 

Sarah Wells

 

MP Account Manager

 

UK Visas and Immigration

 

Home Office

 

 

 

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Dear Home Office,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Home Office's handling of my FOI request 'Sarah Rapson vs Lin Homer'.

While I understand that you have not answered questions one to six as I am not requesting recorded information, I would have thought that you would grab this opportunity to explain on an open public forum, why the 'customer service team' at the Home Office has been such a spectacular failure, and continues to be.
Let me rephrase the questions in the hope that we, the public, get SOME kind of response, as writing as individuals to the Home Office proves absolutely fruitless. We are most often ignored, side-lined and patronised. In the hope that my MP might get a little more respect, I went to seek help from him. I'm afraid he was treated with the same disdain that we are all subjected to, so getting answers from The Home Office has forced the public into seeking FOI requests. This fact now generally acknowledged by certain Select Committee's.

1. What is Ms Rapson's policy for time constraints on the letters and issues which are brought to her department for resolution? Every other government organisation has a time period in which they are required to either reply or update. If Ms Rapson does not have any time constraints in place, could you tell me why Ms Rapson feels that the public in NOT entitled to timeous responses? Perhaps if her staff were subjected to deadlines, there would not be the horrendous backlog at your organisation, that there currently is.
2. What procedures are in place for members of her customer services team to deal with letters of complaints submitted by MP's, and please could you provide me with a copy of this procedure.
3. Could you confirm that you have no data recorded for the number of cases or complaints that Ms Rapson PERSONALLY deals with on any level? For example - the PHSO have a process in place where, if you are not happy with the way your case is dealt with, it goes to a review team and some of these cases are presented to the Ombudsman, herself, for review and sign off. This data is recorded in their online management system. Does Ms Rapson have a similar policy?
4. I refer to question 1.
5. I refer to question 2.
6. What procedural policy distinction is there between dealing with letters from MP's and letters from members of the public? i.e. Is there a dedicated team that ONLY deals with MP's queries, or do your letters of complaint all go into the same pot?
I have some further questions which have sprung from your response;
You have stated that Ms Rapson does not send internal memo's? How very bizarre. Could you provide me with the last ten emails that Ms Rapson sent her Director of Customer Service please.
If Ms Rapson does not send memo's to her staff, could you please tell me how she communicates with her heads of department or staff members?
Could you provide me with the minutes of the last meeting that Ms Rapson had with any of her colleagues or members of staff regarding customer service. Let me make it very clear - just the last meeting she had.
Please could you provide me with the results of your last staff survey undertaken.
You state that you answered my questions regarding the job titles of officials and confirmation that Ms Rapson does not deal with any letters from MP's herself in my FOI request 29012.
As you do not wish to provide me with job titles, please could you provide me with the direct telephone number of the Director of Customer Services as well as Ms Rapson's.

Here's the ICO's own 'public interest' judgement on it...

The Commissioner believes that there is a public interest in favour of disclosure as this would facilitate ease of contact with a public authority and, in particular, with an official whose role involves responding to correspondence from the public. The DfT has argued that this public interest is met through generic contact details, not relating to any individual, that were disclosed to the complainant. In response to this point the Commissioner would note that it is a standard approach for an organisation to provide both generic contact details, such as a telephone helpline number and a departmental email address, but also to provide the contact details of individuals in order to simplify the process of communicating with the correct individual. There is, therefore, public interest in disclosure of the information in question, even if there is also disclosure of generic contact details.
24. As to whether disclosure of the information would be necessary for the purposes of that public interest, the issue here is whether this public interest could be served through other means without any impact upon the privacy of the data subject. The stance of the DfT in response to this request suggests that this information is not available elsewhere so the Commissioner finds that it would be necessary for this to be disclosed in response to the complainant’s request in order to satisfy this public interest.

http://www.ico.org.uk/~/media/documents/...

So I look forward to receiving these.

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

Yours faithfully,

CA Purkis

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FOI Requests, Home Office

CA Purkis

 

Thank you for contacting the Home office.

 

This will be handled as an internal review of your Freedom of Information
request. The internal review will be carried out by D Pottinger (ref
29854). We will aim to send you a full response by 20/01/2014 which is
twenty working days from the date we received your internal review
request.

 

If you have any questions then please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

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FOI Requests

Home Office

 

 

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Freedom Of Information Team ( IND ), Home Office

Dear C A Purkis

 

Thank you for your recent e mail concerning the above matter. We are
dealing with your enquiry and will respond in due course.

 

Regards

 

 

Information Management Services (IMS),

Corporate Services

Home Office

12th Floor Lunar House, 40 Wellesley Road, Croydon CR9 2BY

[1]www.gov.uk/home-office

 

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[Name Removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Why did they send you three emails?

You'd think, with the huge backlog, they'd be concentrating on answering the the key points, rather than sending out three receipts.

CA Purkis left an annotation ()

Yes - I wondered the same thing.

Freedom Of Information Team ( IND ), Home Office

1 Attachment

Dear C A Purkis,

 

Please find attached the response to your request.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Information Management Services (IMS),

Corporate Services

Home Office

12th Floor Lunar House, 40 Wellesley Road, Croydon CR9 2BY

[1]www.gov.uk/home-office

 

 

From: Freedom Of Information Team ( IND )
Sent: 08 January 2014 16:06
To: '[FOI #187469 email]'
Subject: 30211 Customer Services

 

Dear C A Purkis

 

Thank you for your recent e mail concerning the above matter. We are
dealing with your enquiry and will respond in due course.

 

Regards

 

 

Information Management Services (IMS),

Corporate Services

Home Office

12th Floor Lunar House, 40 Wellesley Road, Croydon CR9 2BY

[2]www.gov.uk/home-office

 

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2. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/

Dear Home Office,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Home Office's handling of my FOI request 'Sarah Rapson vs Lin Homer'.

I am dissatisfied with your response, and request and 'independent' internal review. My reference number is 30211. Let me helpful, and explain to you why I am dissatisfied with your response.

It is a well acknowledged fact that your organisation is beleaguered. You have huge backlogs, are constantly in the media for unacceptable actions, and yet refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing whatsoever. Only today, in the news, a report of your organisation, handcuffing an 80 something year old Canadian to a hospital bed, against doctors instructions, and who subsequently died.
I, as a member of the public, and as an individual, who has had five years of brutal treatment by your organisation, am QUITE ENTITLED to ask for information regarding the head of this failing organisation. Without members of the public pushing for information and change, you would be in danger of becoming, what some already consider an anarchist organisation.
I have asked some very relevant questions, in order to see how Ms Rapson is making the changes she has promised to the HASC, but which we are yet to see come to fruition. Please, therefore, re-consider my request.
It is not acceptable for the Home Office to simply make any request that they find uncomfortable, vexatious. Perhaps if they were to deal with matters in the spirit of proper customer service, they would not have so many problems.

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

Yours faithfully,

CA Purkis

FOI Requests, Home Office

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FOI Requests, Home Office

 

 

Dear CA Purkis

 

Thank you for your email] of 16 January 2014 in which you ask for an
internal review of our response to your Freedom of Information request of
CR 30211

 

We will aim to send you a full response by 13/02/2014 which is twenty
working days from the date when we received your request.

 

The internal review will be carried out by D Pottinger. If you have any
questions then please do not hesitate to contact them using the above
address.

 

Yours sincerely

 

FoI Requests

 

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FOI Responses, Home Office

1 Attachment

Ms Purkiss

Please find attached a response to your request for an internal review

 

 

 

Diana Pottinger

Information Access Team

Information Management Services

Corporate Services

Ground Floor Seacole

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DW

 

 

Please note that any futher correspondence should be sent to 
[1][Home Office request email]  not FOI responses.

 

 

 

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[Name Removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Ms Rapson had not sent any interdepartmental memos....

Ask for any communications that she has sent to whichever department you want to know about..containing the term.. Whatever it us that you want to know about.

FOI Responses, Home Office

1 Attachment

Ms Purkis

Please find attached a response to your request for an internal review

 

 

Diana Pottinger

Information Access Team

Information Management Services

Corporate Services

Ground Floor Seacole

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DW

 

 

Please note that any futher correspondence should be sent to 
[1][Home Office request email]  not FOI responses.

 

 

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Dear FOI Team

Thank you for your very thorough analysis of my review request.
The FOI Act was designed to give individuals a greater right of access to official information with the intention of MAKING PUBLIC BODIES MORE TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE.

63 request, but only 20 to your organisation. You seem however, to have made an in depth study of my requests and my annotations. Perhaps if you spent more time on your answers and less on studying WDTK requests, we might get some of our reviews upheld?

Your small and burdened department have decided to make some of us 'vexatious' as you do not like our tone or our implications... So much for freedom of speech. You have stated that 8 of my requests have asked for a review, which constitutes a burden on your department. Have you considered that if you answered my questions, then no review would be sought? Ergo - no burden. I too understand, that your department does not like people to submit two requests on the same day? Too much is it?

Aggressive language? Unfounded accusations? I'm afraid YOUR examples are unfounded. I have clear and documented evidence that your organisation have failed to respond to many members of the public regarding correspondence or complaints sent to them. Most people might agree that this would constitute incompetence.

You don't like the words beleaguered or failing? I do apologise. It seems the Home Secretary may use them, but us mere mortals may not.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/i...

Would you be less offended if I used the words 'secretive' and 'defensive'? Also words to describe your organisation - by your boss. It should also be pointed out, that there is much evidence in the public domain, to show that not much has changed since this split occurred. Your own Director - claimed that you would 'never be fixed'.

You also did not like me using the word 'Collusion'. Strange that of all the 132 disparaging annotations I made, this one was highlighted.

Further, it seems that your department has made a unanimous decision that I am using the FOI requests as a means of venting my frustration against what I perceive to be an unauthorised access to my information by members of your staff.
Right and wrong. Your employees DID access my information illegally, and your organisation DID NOT deal with the matter correctly.

http://compliance.saiglobal.com/communit...

It seems that as these employees are still working for you, you have no problem with them looking into the public's private information?

After I had to deal with this intrusion and your lack of response to it, in a further internal memo shown to me, I discovered that one of your Supervisor's was passing my CID notes around and making comments about my letter writing to the Home Office. I made an official and perfectly polite request to your organisation, that this matter be looked into. That was a very long time ago.
Since that time, I have had absolutely no response or explanation from The Home Office. They have totally ignored this matter. Perhaps they think its acceptable for your employees to pass comments around about members of the public? They certainly didn't seem to think it a problem when my husband's ex wife looked into my personal information while she worked for you.

So in conclusion, your attempt to paint me as a bitter and frustrated complainant is pretty accurate, but not for the reasons you proclaim. I am using the only tool I have at my disposal, to make your organisation accountable and transparent. The very reason the Act was laid out.
Of course - I am not the only one that has had incredible difficulty getting a proper service from The Home Office. Again - there are many many thousands of people that find your organisation untenable to deal with.
Any information I have requested, has only been in order that I might hold The Home Office to account for the way they deal with the public. I have now become a campaigner.
I think your summary of me and my requests is just another example of how your organisation completely fails members of the public on almost every level.

Yours sincerely,

CA Purkis

FOI Responses, Home Office

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[Name Removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Well said CA Purkiss.

This reads like the Home Office shouod be retitled 'Blamethrowers Anonymous'.

Had your personal files read by someone who has no reason to read them?

Had unfounded allegations about you put on record?

Object.....and you are labelled vexatious.

And Blamethrowers Anonymous won't have to answer any reasonable FoI - simply because to do so would be an embarrassment.

CA Purkis left an annotation ()

They are the ones that seem to be using their frustration to make people unnecessarily vexatious.

Dear Home Office,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Home Office's handling of my FOI request 'Sarah Rapson vs Lin Homer'.

With regard to your accusations in your latest review of my request below.
You used the words 'aggressive' and 'abusive'. You also accused me of making unfounded claims or statements.
I have not used any aggressive or abusive language, nor are any of my claims unfounded. On the contrary, they are well documented and on public record.
In light of this, the question begs why you are attempting to discredit me on a public forum in this manner. Your job is to assess FOI requests, not to make slanderous comments or give personal opinions as to why you believe people are seeking information.
I await your public apology.

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

Yours faithfully,

CA Purkis

FOI Requests, Home Office

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FOI Requests, Home Office

Ms Purkis

 

 

The Home Office has already completed an Internal review of Foi case
30211.  No further reviews of this case will be carried out.  As advised
in our response the next stage of complaint is the Information
Commissioners Office.

 

 

Gareth Wyn Hazzelby

Information Services Centre Manager

Corporate Services

 

Home Office

Information Management Services (IMS) | Information Services Centre |
Lower Ground Floor | Seacole Building | Home Office | 2 Marsham Street | 
London SW1P 4DF

 

 

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Dear FOI Requests,

I don't want a review. I want an apology. I have taken real issue with you calling me abusive and aggressive. However, I realise the chances of this are about as slim as the Home Office catching up with the backlog of applications they have outstanding.

Yours sincerely,

CA Purkis

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CA Purkis left an annotation ()

The Home Office - no answers - late replies and sometimes no replies. And they call the public vexatious? How have they got away with so much for so long?

[Name Removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Would it be that it's not in the government's interests to do anything about it?

Peter Whitehead left an annotation ()

I had no idea just how lazy and incompetent our public services had become until we became dragged into battling the Immigration and Visa "service" over their refusal of what should have been a routine visa provision for a Macedonian visitor we had invited to our UK home as our guest for a week. What on earth do they do for the extortionate fees they charge? No checking, it seems. A simple phone call to us would have established the bona fides of our guest's application. And then to try and correct this injustice, we are expected to pay through the nose again using expensive phone lines that keep us hanging on for ages, and then to reapply via an embassy involves another fee - more than double the initial fee. It must be making a fortune. Naturally, our Macedonian guest has lost all faith in UK bureaucracy and cannot afford another huge fee with little expectation of proper consideration this time around. I recount this in support of CA's campaign. I hope it is still running. Dealing with UK Visas is a miserable Kafka-esque experience. The attitude comes across as arrogant, remote, aggressively unhelpful and unprofessional. We are appalled and shocked and share CA's views of the shambolic organisation.

CA Purkis left an annotation ()

Thank you Peter. My campaign continues, although it's almost impossible to hold the UK Visa Directorate to account. I am in the process of taking them to Court, which will not only expose incompetence, but something far more sinister. After asking for all my information recently from the Hime Office, I found that they had falsified a witness statement I had given in order to exonerate their employees from wrongdoing.
This time, I have the proof, as I recorded the statement as I was giving it over the phone.
Their solicitors also tell me they have a "policy" of not meeting with any aggrieved complainants. I have just put in a new FOI request to have sight of this policy.
With their policy of ignoring everyone who is unhappy with a decision or a mistake they may have made, it literally makes them untouchable.
As you stated Peter, the British public are wholly unaware of this disaster as they don't have any dealings with this white elephant.
The backlogs of passport applications, gave them some insight.
If the ire was so great at not being able to go on holiday due to The Home Office's incompetence, can you imagine what the poor but legitimate immigrants and visitors, who come to this country have to deal with?
And all the while the fat cats sit in their towers, collecting their huge bonuses.
It is more than outrageous!