When was the last time that qualifications and past experience claimed by staff in each department checked and what action followed instances of false claims?

Lancashire County Council did not have the information requested.

Dear Lancashire County Council,

False claims of qualifications and past experience are sometimes made by prospective and existing staff and I should be grateful if you'd disclose the following:

1. The names of each department within Lancashire County Council.

2. The date of the most recent audit of claimed qualifications and experience among staff within each department.

3. The number of false claims of either qualifications or experience made within each department.

4. The action(s) that followed such discovery within each department.

5. The number of times that Lancashire County Council has been alerted to an employee's false claim of qualification or experience by anyone outside Lancashire County Council.

6. What action followed any such notification in point 5 above?

Yours faithfully,

Michael Ryan

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Ryan

 

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

We are writing to acknowledge receipt of your email, in which you request
the disclosure of information under the provisions of the above Act.

 

We can confirm that your enquiry will now be assigned to an officer who
will commence a search for the information you require and they will
respond in due course.

 

The deadline date for issuing you with a full response is 19 September. 
We will endeavour to provide a response well in advance of this date,
however, should we envisage any delays, or require more details from you,
we will contact you immediately. If you have any queries about the above,
please do not hesitate to contact us, quoting ref. 909.1116.

 

Yours sincerely

 

On behalf of the Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

[1][Lancashire County Council request email]

[2]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

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Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr. Ryan,

 

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

Further to your request for information, made under the provisions of the
above Act, please see below the response we received from our HR and Audit
Teams.

 

Request & Response:

 

False claims of qualifications and past experience are sometimes made by
prospective and existing staff and I should be grateful if you'd disclose
the following:

 

1.     The names of each department within Lancashire County Council.

Please see the PDF document attached to this email which answers this
aspect of your enquiry.

 

2.     The date of the most recent audit of claimed qualifications and
experience among staff within each department.

Lancashire County Council have never undertaken a specific audit of
claimed qualifications and experience, nor do we have any records of any
audits carried out in relation to claimed qualification and experience. I
have been advised, however, that the Audit Team used to undertake sample
checks of new starters, which included checking that qualifications had
been seen by the Officer who had made the appointment, but due to a lack
of resources these checks are no longer undertaken. Unfortunately, we no
longer have any records due to the council's document retention policy. 

 

3.     The number of false claims of either qualifications or experience
made within each department.

4.     The action(s) that followed such discovery within each department

5.     The number of times that Lancashire County Council has been alerted
to an employee's false claim of qualification or experience by anyone
outside Lancashire County Council.

6.     What action followed any  such notification in point 5 above?

 

We are unable to provide you with a full response to the above 4 aspects
of your request. HR have advised that the information for this part of
your query is not held centrally, and to collate it, would take in excess
of 18 hours, as a member of staff from HR would need to manually go
through thousands of Personnel files to find and gather the information
you require. It would also entail having to contact every manager to ask
if they had ever come across this, and would also be reliant on them
keeping accurate records, which, if held, would take some time to put
together. This would incur a commitment of resources in excess of the
limit of £450 set by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (SI No. 3244 of 2004), which
equates to 18 hours of work.

 

Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act provides that a public
authority is not obliged to comply with a request where to do so would
exceed such a limit. Due to the nature of the information you are seeking,
and the way in which it is recorded, it is difficult to suggest a way in
which this aspect of your request can be refined to bring it within the
appropriate limit whilst still yielding meaningful results.

 

We are sorry we have been unable to answer your request in full. In the
event that you wish to complain about the manner in which your enquiry has
been handled, you should write in the first instance to The Freedom of
Information Officer, Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78, County Hall,
Preston PR1 8XJ, or email [1][Lancashire County Council request email] and
the matter will be referred to an Information Governance Manager for
review and reconsideration.

 

If, after this stage, you remain dissatisfied, you have the right to refer
the matter to the Information Commissioner's Office, contact details for
which are as follows:

 

The Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

Tel:                  0303 123 1113

Email:              [2][email address]

Website:           [3]http://www.ico.org.uk

 

Yours Sincerely,

On Behalf of the Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

[4][Lancashire County Council request email]

[5]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

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Dear Freedom of Information,

I cannot see any pdf attached to the reply:

"1. The names of each department within Lancashire County Council.

Please see the PDF document attached to this email which answers this
aspect of your enquiry."

Can you please provide the document?

Many thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Ryan

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Ryan,

 

Further to your email below, please find attached the PDF document
referred to in our original response.

 

Please accept our sincere apologies for the omission, and the
inconvenience this may have caused.

 

Yours Sincerely,

On Behalf of the Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

[1][Lancashire County Council request email]

[2]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

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Dear Freedom of Information,

Thank you for providing the pdf of departments.

In view of the time constraint and the large scope of my request, I should be grateful if you'd confine the FoI request to the department headed by Bob Scott, Director of Children's Services.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Ryan

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Ryan,

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your request, in which you request the disclosure of information under the provisions of the above Act.

I can confirm that your enquiry will now be assigned to an officer who will commence a search for the information you require and they will respond in due course. The deadline date for issuing you with full response is 19/10. We will endeavour to provide a response well in advance of this date, however, should we envisage any delays, or require more details from you, we will contact you immediately.

If you have any queries about the above, please do not hesitate to contact us, quoting ref 909.1267.

Yours sincerely

Information Governance Team
Lancashire County Council
www.lancashire.gov.uk

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Dear Freedom of Information,

Thank you for your response.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Ryan

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Ryan,

 

Further to the emails below, please can you confirm that the questions
highlighted below is what you require a response to?

 

 1. The names of each department within Lancashire County Council.

Please see the PDF document attached to this email which answers this
aspect of your enquiry.

 

 2. The date of the most recent audit of claimed qualifications and
experience among staff within each department.

Lancashire County Council have never undertaken a specific audit of
claimed qualifications and experience, nor do we have any records of any
audits carried out in relation to claimed qualification and experience. I
have been advised, however, that the Audit Team used to undertake sample
checks of new starters, which included checking that qualifications had
been seen by the Officer who had made the appointment, but due to a lack
of resources these checks are no longer undertaken. Unfortunately, we no
longer have any records due to the council's document retention policy. 

 

 3. The number of false claims of either qualifications or experience made
within the department headed by Bob Scott, Director of Children's
Services
 4. The action(s) that followed such discovery
 5. The number of times that Lancashire County Council has been alerted to
an employee's false claim of qualification or experience by anyone
outside Lancashire County Council.
 6. What action followed any  such notification in point 5 above?

 

 

Thank you in advance

Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

[1]www.lancashire.gov.uk

[2][Lancashire County Council request email]

 

 

 

 

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Dear Freedom of Information,

My revised request is limited to Bob Scott's department.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Ryan

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Ryan,

 

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

Further to your request for information, made under the provisions of the
above Act, please see below the response we received from the relevant
Department.

 

Request:

 

My request is limited to Bob Scott's department:

 

The number of false claims of either qualifications or experience made 
within the department headed by Bob Scott, Director of Children's 
Services

The action(s) that followed such discovery

The number of times that Lancashire County Council has been alerted to  an
employee's false claim of qualification or experience by anyone  outside
Lancashire County Council.

What action followed any  such notification in point above?

 

Response:

 

After having made enquiries with relevant Teams across the Authority,
Lancashire County Council does not hold the information you are
requesting.

 

We are sorry we have been unable to assist you on this occasion.

 

Should you require anything further, please do not hesitate to contact the
Team quoting reference number 909.1267.PH

 

Yours Sincerely,

On Behalf of the Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

[1][Lancashire County Council request email]

[2]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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Dear Lancashire County Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Lancashire County Council's handling of my revised FOI request 'When was the last time that qualifications and past experience claimed by staff in Bob Scott's department checked and what action followed instances of false claims?'.

The response is unsatisfactory as every employer should hold a record of the information I've requested.

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

Yours faithfully,

Michael Ryan

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Ryan

 

We are writing to confirm that your email below has been received by our
Team and is logged with the reference number 912.41

 

We are looking into the issues raised in your email and hope to be in a
position to respond to you soon.

 

Yours sincerely,

On Behalf of the Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

[Lancashire County Council request email]

www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

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Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Ryan

 

Further to your email of 12^th October, in which you express
dissatisfaction at the response to your FOI request, I am now in a
position to respond.

 

I have considered your original request, the response of 14^th September,
and your subsequent comments.

 

After having made further enquiries with the relevant Department, they
have come back to us advising that they are unable to assist you further
as the information you require is not held.

 

If you still disagree with this, you can refer the matter to the
Information Commissioner's Office, contact details for which have been
provided previously.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Mr M Sayles

Information Access Manager

Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

[1]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

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