Councillor John S Fenty and FSF Dormant Limited, Five Star Fish In Waiting Limited and Grimsby and Cleethorpes Area Enterprise Agency Limited (The)

Waiting for an internal review by North East Lincolnshire Council of their handling of this request.

Dear North East Lincolnshire Council,

I understand Councillor John S Fenty (North East Lincolnshire Council member) is the director of a company known as FSF Dormant Limited since his appointment to that particular company in January 2010. Please provide the reasons why Councillor Fenty has failed to disclose his interest as director of FSF Dormant Limited which I believe are breaches of The Relevant Authorities (Disclosable Pecuniary Interests) Regulations 2012 and North East Lincolnshire Council’s Code of Conduct.

I also understand Councillor Fenty is the director of a company known as Five Star Fish In Waiting Limited since his appointment to that particular company in January 2010. Please provide the reasons why Councillor Fenty has failed to disclose his interest as director of Five Star Fish In Waiting Limited which I believe are further breaches of The Relevant Authorities (Disclosable Pecuniary Interests) Regulations 2012 and North East Lincolnshire Council’s Code of Conduct.

Additionally, I also understand Councillor Fenty is the director of a company known as Grimsby and Cleethorpes Area Enterprise Agency Limited (The) since his appointment to that particular company in January 2006. Please provide the reasons why Councillor Fenty has failed to disclose his interest as director of Grimsby and Cleethorpes Area Enterprise Agency Limited (The) which I believe are further breaches of The Relevant Authorities (Disclosable Pecuniary Interests) Regulations 2012 and North East Lincolnshire Council’s Code of Conduct.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Alan

PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Sir,

 

I am pleased to acknowledge your request for information, which has been
allocated the reference number 8871_1415.

Your request has been passed to the relevant department for processing and
you can expect your response within the 20 working day limit. If it will
take us longer than 20 working days to respond to you, we will inform you
of this and provide you with the expected date for receiving a response.

Further information about how we will deal with your Freedom of
Information requests is available on our website at:
[1]http://www.nelincs.gov.uk/council/the-co....

Please feel free to contact me if you require any further information or
assistance quoting the reference number above.

 

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

 

Feedback Officer

Resources Directorate

 

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PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Sir

 

Thank you for your freedom of information request reference 8871_1415.
North East Lincolnshire Council holds no recorded information with regard
to your request under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

It may be helpful if I explain that the Freedom of Information Act (2000)
gives individuals and organisations the right of access to all types of
recorded information held, at the time the request is received, by public
authorities such as North East Lincolnshire Council. Section 84 of the Act
states that in order for a request for information to be handled as a
Freedom of Information (FOI) request, it must be for recorded information.
For example, a Freedom of Information request would be for a copy of a
policy, rather than an explanation as to why we have that policy in place.
On occasion, North East Lincolnshire Council receives requests that do not
ask for recorded information, but ask more general questions about, for
example, a policy, opinion or a decision. In this instance I am satisfied
that your request falls outside of the scope of the Freedom of Information
Act as it is not a request for recorded information but is a request for
the reasons as to why a disclosure may not have been made.

 

If you believe that your request for information has not been handled in
accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, you have the right to
request an internal review by the Council. Please be clear about which
elements of the Council’s response or handling of the request you are
unhappy with, and would like the Council to address during the internal
review process.  If following this you are still dissatisfied you may
contact the Office of the Information Commissioner. If you wish to request
an internal review, please contact me and I will make the necessary
arrangements.

 

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

 

Feedback Officer

 

Resources Directorate

 

 

From: PPD - FOI
Sent: 14 November 2014 10:56
To: '[FOI #239169 email]'
Subject: Freedom of Information request 8817_1415

 

Dear Sir,

 

I am pleased to acknowledge your request for information, which has been
allocated the reference number 8871_1415.

Your request has been passed to the relevant department for processing and
you can expect your response within the 20 working day limit. If it will
take us longer than 20 working days to respond to you, we will inform you
of this and provide you with the expected date for receiving a response.

Further information about how we will deal with your Freedom of
Information requests is available on our website at:
[1]http://www.nelincs.gov.uk/council/the-co....

Please feel free to contact me if you require any further information or
assistance quoting the reference number above.

 

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

 

Feedback Officer

Resources Directorate

 

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Dear North East Lincolnshire Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of North East Lincolnshire Council's handling of my FOI request 'Councillor John S Fenty and FSF Dormant Limited, Five Star Fish In Waiting Limited and Grimsby and Cleethorpes Area Enterprise Agency Limited (The)'.

Thank you for your reply. However, there must be definitive reasons why Councillor Fenty has withheld this information and continues to do so otherwise they remain as breaches of The Relevant Authorities (Disclosable Pecuniary Interests) Regulations 2012 and North East Lincolnshire Council’s Code of Conduct.

It may be helpful if I explain that the monitoring officer carries out the following functions as specific responsibilities of his position:

* reporting on contraventions or likely contraventions of any enactment or rule of law;
* establishing and maintaining registers of members' interests and gifts and hospitality;
* maintaining, reviewing and monitoring the constitution;
* advising members on the interpretation of the code of conduct;
* conducting or delegating the conduct of investigations into misconduct;
* acting as the proper officer for access to information;
* advising on vires issues, maladministration, impropriety and probity issues to all members; and
* receiving reports and taking action.

The monitoring officer is obviously responsible for monitoring and reviewing the operation of the council's constitution to ensure that the aims and principles of the constitution are given full effect and therefore I expected intervention from the council's monitoring officer after such an explicit matter was raised, within my request, with officers of the council's PPD since this is information that the council must hold in relation to Councillor Fenty and be made available as a response to the information request.

I now request an internal review.

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

Yours faithfully,

Alan

PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Alan

 

I am pleased to acknowledge your correspondence and wish to confirm that
an Internal Review of the handling of your Information Request 8817_1415
is to take place.

 

Also please note that the reference number is 8817_1415 and not 8871_1415
as previously stated, apologises for any confusion caused.

 

The Internal Review has been passed to the relevant department for
processing and you can expect your response within the 20 working day
limit. If it will take us longer than 20 working days to respond to you,
we will inform you of this and provide you with the expected date for
receiving a response.

 

Further information about how we will deal with your Freedom of
Information requests is available on our website at:
[1]http://www.nelincs.gov.uk/council/the-co....

 

Please feel free to contact me if you require any further information or
assistance quoting the reference number above.

 

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

 

Feedback Officer

Resources Directorate

 

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PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Alan

Further to your request an Internal Review has taken place into North East
Lincolnshire Council's handling of your information request reference
8817_1415, concerning councillor’s declarations.

I have reviewed the response provided to you and the handling of your
request in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act and find:

·         That your request was responded to within the statutory time of
20 working days;

·         That you were informed whether or not the information you asked
for was held by North East Lincolnshire Council; and

·         That your response provided you with your rights of appeal. 

I am therefore satisfied that the Council has acted in accordance with the
Freedom of Information Act in the handling of your request.

Following receipt of your request for an internal review further enquiries
have been made and information received in relation to the declarations
you have queried. It should be highlighted that at the time of your
initial request no recorded information was held as stated in the original
response and therefore the inclusion of the reasons would not have been
possible.

Subsequent to your internal review request, it has been confirmed that in
relation to the Grimsby and Cleethorpes Enterprise Agency, although these
had been declared in the past, it was an oversight that they had not been
declared in the latest entry. It should be noted that the services
provided to this company are free of charge as is the case with all
Directors.

With regard to Five Star Fish, in waiting and dormant, since these
companies do not trade the councillor felt that there was no need to
declare anything.  It should be noted that the Relevant Authorities
(Disclosable Pecuniary Interests) Regulations 2012 specify that “any
employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or
gain” constitutes a DPI.  If a member is a director of a company, then
they would hold office in that capacity. That office must also be ‘carried
on for profit or gain’ to fall within the definition. As the definition
states ‘carried on’ and not ‘carried on or has been carried on’ it is
considered that the office must currently be carried on for profit or
gain. Following this, our view is that the office as director would fall
outside of the definition of a DPI if the company was now dormant, as the
profit/ gain would cease.  

I can confirm that the Register of Interests has been updated to include
the Grimsby and Cleethorpes Enterprise Agency.

I trust that this Internal Review answers your queries in relation to your
request, and clarifies that your request has been handled in accordance
with the Freedom of Information Act. 

If you remain dissatisfied with the Council’s handling of your request, or
the decision of the internal review you can request an independent review
by contacting the Information Commissioner's Office at Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

Ian Hollingsworth

Information Governance and Complaints

 

 

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