Dear Local Government Ombudsmen,

In your response to my request of April 25 you wrote "Mr Redmond accepted an approach from the CPA Australia to speak at their National Conference held in Melbourne." CPA Australia is Australia's largest professional organisation and the sixth largest accounting body in the world. Mr Redmond is a Chartered Public Finance Accountant and is a Fellow of CPA Australia. He made the choice. This was entirely a matter for him, and, it seems, entirely in accord with his own interests. In which case why was the British tax-payer billed for the consequences of Mr Redmond's acceptance? When Australia's largest professional organisation, which has assets of many, many millions of dollars, made its approach to somebody on the other side of the world, did it not offer to pay his necessary expenses?

My FOI request is - 1. Did Mr Redmond ask the CPA to pay his expenses? 2. Under what procedures/policies/regulations did the taxpayer end up paying for this trip, and could I please have a copy of these said documents. Thankyou.

You also wrote "He then visited a number of Ombudsmen in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth as follows:

The Public Sector Ombudsman and Deputy Ombudsman for Victoria State

The Energy and Water Ombudsman (and her Conciliation Team Co-ordinator) for Victoria State

The Minister for Local Government (Victoria)

The Banking Ombudsman for Australia

The Public Transport Ombudsman

The Financial Industry Complaints Services Ombudsman

The Deputy Ombudsman and Assistant Ombudsman for New South Wales

The Chief Executive Officer for the City of Perth

The Local Ombudsman and a Councillor for the City of Perth

The State Ombudsman for Western Australia (and members of her senior staff)

The Director of the Department of Local Government and Regional Development of Western Australia (and his senior staff)

The Chief Executive Officers of the Cities of Swan and Melsille, Western Australia

Mr Redmond gave presentations to the staff of the Western Australian Ombudsman and the Department of Local Government and Community Development.

Clearly all of the thirteen above was nothing whatsoever to do with the CPA and its approach. It appears to have been Mr Redmond's personal wish to tour Australia after the CPA's National Conference in the same way that tourists commonly visit people in their own area of work/interest when tourists in another country.

Yours faithfully,

j byrne

Dear Mrs Pook,

Thanks for your response. However, in my question 2 what I asked was "Under what procedures/policies/regulations did the taxpayer end up paying for this trip, and could I please have a copy of these said documents." You merely said that the Commission had the "authority" to approve this expenditure of public funds.

Whether they had the authority or not was not the question. The decisions needed to be formed along certain lines and then, after that, be authorised. What you provided does not enable me to see if the decision-makers followed the Commission's own procedures, the correct procedures, or if they adhered to any procedure at all.

So could I please have (by 25th June) what I requested, which is a copy of the procedures/policies/regulations that these three people were required to work to.

Yours sincerely,

j byrne

Dear Local Government Ombudsmen,

An acknowledgement of receipt of my follow-up message (of last Wednesday 23rd June) has not been sent. I would appreciate it if you would not only rectify this omission but also supply a s a p the information detailed in that message. This information was requested more than twenty working days ago.

Yours faithfully,

j byrne

Dear Ms Pook,

Thankyou for your reply, "I will deal with this as soon as possible, but will not be able to respond until the week beginning 12 July at the earliest". I am appreciative of you dealing with it a s a p, but are you not aware that at the "earliest" you will have taken 31 working days to provide copies of documents that by law were required to be provided promptly, or failing that, within a maximum of 20 working days?

Yours sincerely,

j byrne

Dear Ms Pook,

Thank you. However, after two months you still have failed to produce a single document that I requested. For example, the Commission has a policy on longhaul flights. Why have you not given me a copy of that?

I find it astonishing and impossible to believe that the Commission has no Procedures, no Regulations, no Guidelines and ONE Policy. So could you please forward a full list of the Commission's Policies, Procedures, Regulations and Guidelines along with a copy of the
longhaul flight Policy.

Yours sincerely,

j byrne

Dear Ms Pook,

I can see that you've responded to several requests today. I'm wondering if my follow-up of July 20th above has been overlooked, particularly as I can see that one from another requester, also last week, is awaiting a response too. I'd much appreciate even the vaguest indication of when you expect to supply the information.

Yours sincerely,

j byrne