Staff Suspensions DASS 2006-2010

The request was successful.

Dear Wirral Borough Council,

Would you please be so kind as to supply:

1. The numbers of DASS staff supended in years 2006,2007,2008,2009 and 2010 and the grade / position of staff suspended. Please supply this if possible in table format.

2. For each year please could you supply the number of working days lost due to staff suspensions.

Yours faithfully,

Pete Sheffield

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

1 Attachment

Good Afternoon,
Thank you for your recent request for information. Please see table
attached and I hope this information is useful to you.
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin
Information Manager
Wirral Council

This information supplied to you is copyrighted and continues to be
protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free
to use it for your own purposes, including any non commercial research
you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse,
for example commercial publication, would require our specific
permission, may involve licensing and the application of a charge

show quoted sections

Dear InfoMgr, FinDMT,

Thank you for the information. Can I clarify that during the time period stated two senior officers of assistant director level were not suspended due to an independent investigation regarding being aware of illegal charging of vulnerable adults and failing to cease the policy?

It is my understanding that during this time of suspension an independent investigation was carried out which recommended that both be dismissed, which was then ignored and both assistant directors were then reinstated.

The period in question was a matter of months of which they were suspended on full salary.

May I suggest that the information provided is incomplete?

Yours sincerely,

Pete Sheffield

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

Good Morning,
Thank you for your email below, I will make some enquiries and get back
to you as soon as possible.
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin

show quoted sections

Dear Wirral Borough Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Wirral Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Staff Suspensions DASS 2006-2010'.

WBC has failed to disclose accurate information and failed in their duty to adhere to legislation.

Yours faithfully,

Pete Sheffield

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

   Good Afternoon,

Thank you for your recent email below.  I was waiting for some detail from
HR Colleagues to be confirmed to me, in relation to any omitted
information with regard to your original query.

 

The information on the Officers in question was not listed under their
department of DASS but was held separately.  This omission has now been
resolved and the information is attached below.  I apologise that the
information was not included in my first response to you and I hope this
information is still of use to you.

I trust you will accept this as a response to your request for an internal
review?

   Kind Regards

     Jane Corrin

     Information Manager

     Wirral Council

    

     This information supplied to you is copyrighted and continues to be

     protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are

     free to use it for your own purposes, including any non commercial

     research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any
other

     reuse, for example commercial publication, would require our specific

     permission, may involve licensing and the application of a charge

 

 

Year Number Grade Position Days
2006 0     0
2007 0     0
2008 2 Deputy Chief Officer Head of Branch (x2) 210
2009 2 Deputy  Chief Officer Head of Branch (x2) 180
2010 0     0

 

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear InfoMgr, FinDMT,

Unfortunately due to the lack of transparency I seek an internal review.

Due to the failure of WBC to supply the correct information I am left without confidence that these are the only people suspended during 2006-2010.

Yours sincerely,

Pete Sheffield

Dear InfoMgr, FinDMT,

This request is with the ICO.

Yours sincerely,

Pete Sheffield

Corrin, Jane, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

Dear Mr. Sheffield,

Freedom of Information Request dated 3^rd October 2011 (Staff Suspensions
DASS 2006 – 2010)

Further to e-mail dated 7^th November 2011, I have now had the opportunity
to carry out a full review of the Council’s response to your above dated
Freedom of Information request.

In carrying out the review I have taken into consideration the following:

1 – Your request dated 3^rd October 2011

2 – The response from Jane Corrin dated 28^th October 2011

3 – Your e-mail dated 30^th October 2011

4 – The response from Jane Corrin dated 31^st October 2011

5 – Your e-mail dated 7^th November 2011

6 – The response from Jane Corrin dated 7^th November 2011

7 – Your response dated 11^th November 2011

8 – The information available in order to answer your initial request

9 – I have also sort clarification where needed from the officers involved
in providing the information.

10 – I have referred to ‘The Guide to Freedom of Information’ Information
Commissioner’s Office (January, 2013)

My Findings are as follows:

·       The information supplied to you on the 28^th October 2011 was not
complete, I apologies on behalf of the Council for this error. This will
be an area for staff development in the future.

·       Having been made aware of the error staff did then respond with
the information that you requested, although this may have best been done
in line with your original requests namely in table format with all
relevant staff represented. This information is now provided below in the
format requested. I have ascertained that the error occurred due to the
way in which our Human Resources system is set up with separate
establishments for individual department and chief officers.

·       I note that on the 7^th November 2011, Jane Corrin, provided the
additional information with an explanation as to how the original error
had occurred. I note that Jane Corrin asked you to accept this as an
Internal Review. Guidance from the Information Commissioners Office
identifies that an Internal Review should be dealt with by a person who
did not deal with the original request and preferably a more senior member
of staff. In this instance this was not the case and quite rightly you
asked for another Internal Review to be undertaken on the 11^th November
2011.

·       Finally, there has been an unacceptable delay in responding to
your request for which I apologise on behalf of the Council and confirm
that the Council are reviewing its processes in dealing with Freedom of
Information matters in order to reduce the response times to requests in
order to address any concerns regarding systematic failure of process.

 

I hope it will not be necessary but if you are still not satisfied with
the response from the Council you do also have the right to complain
further to the Information Commissioner, if you are dissatisfied with the
outcome of any internal review, whose office is situated at:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Tel: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45

Fax: 01625 524510 [1]www.ico.gov.uk [2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/

In conclusion, I again apologies for the delay in responding to you and
the provision of inaccurate information initially.  In addition, thank you
for taking the time to make the request and for your patience to the
Council in dealing with this matter.

Regards,

Matthew Humble

Business & Performance Manager

Wirral Council

Staff Suspensions

Year    Number of staff suspended       Days lost due to suspension     Posts
(Grades) 
2006/07 5       1184    Support Worker, (Band E/F)

Care Assistant, (Band D)

Manager (PO 6),

Driver (Band C)
2007/08 2       235     Head of Branch (Deputy Chief Officer)

Reviewing Officer, (Band H),

Contracts Officer (Band H)     
2008/09 5       621     Head of Branch (Deputy Chief Officer) x 2

Support Worker, (Band E/F),

 Assessment Support (Band F),

Care Assistant (Band D)
2009/10 6       1171    Head of Branch (Deputy Chief Officer) x 2

Support Worker, (Band E/F),

Assessment Support (Band F),

Senior Care Assistant (Band E),

Care Assistant (Band D)
 

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ico.gov.uk/
2. http://www.ico.gov.uk/

I. Sevova left an annotation ()

Well done for getting to the truth Pete after you were initially given false info, and too bad it had to take well over a year.

In the abusive council's determination to defend the indefensible through prevarication, distortion, falsification and downright lies it makes you wonder how many FOI responses this council have issued knowingly misleading and untruthful info.

Mendacious usually goes hand in hand with abusive!