When communicating with council officers one is sometimes reminded of surrealism, perhaps it’s me, what do you think?
Subject:
Re: Complaint against Thanet District Council
Date:
02/09/2008 13:21:54 GMT Standard Time
From:
Michael Child
Reply To:
To:
richard.samuel@thanet.gov.uk
Hi Richard
Thanks for your letter (below) received today, unfortunately it doesn't actually address my complaint.
Can I reiterate that my complaint is: Thanet District Council has chosen to restrict access to comments on the UKPlanning website, that is on the public facing part of the website only.
As I have pointed out before I can't complain about which documents are missing until the public access restrictions are lifted, as I can't see what is missing.
I have just looked at the planning website and public access is still restricted, why?
Mr M Child
72 King Street
Ramsgate
Kent
0Th 8NY
Our ref: RS/vwYour ref:Date: 29 August 2008Call Direct (01843) 577002
Richard Samuel
Chief Executive
Direct line:
01843 577002
thanet
district council
Thank you for your email of 15th August indicating that you wished me to review the Councils responses to your complaint.
Your complaint was that the Council had in the past chosen to not provide full functionality on the UK planning portal in that certain documents are not automatically available on line.
I regret that the senior officers who took the original decision some 6 or 7 years ago are no longer employed by the Council so it has not been possible to verify the precise details of the discussions and options considered at the time. I am therefore unable to determine whether the decision was taken for financial or technical reasons. However I can concede that access to the UK planning portal on Thanet planning applications is limited to some degree. I believe that better on line facilities are possible to achieve and we are working towards that objective. I have instructed all services to move towards full electronic data management of their activities and a programme of work is in development to achieve this aim. I am pleased to say that the planning service is at the forefront of the programme as we recognise the importance of this service to the public.
Having made my comments above I must point out that full public access is and always has been available on all planning records at all times and the Council fully complies with the law in this regard. There is no legal requirement to provide electronic access to planning records although it is of course good practice to do so. I do not consider therefore that the Council’s approach is created any disadvantage to you or any other resident as the records you were interested in have always been open to inspection by you. I do accept however that you may have been inconvenienced.
I have confirmed to you that it is my intention to ensure in due course that members of the public should be able to view all planning documents whether current or historic via the Council’s web site. The Council will however offer a service to residents who do not have access to the internet and a facility to view electronic files will be available at Thanet Gateway Plus.
I am grateful to you for highlighting this matter and I hope you now understand that it was already the Council’s intention to move in the direction you have suggested to improve our service.
Yours sincerely
Richard Samuel Chief Executive
Click here for some of the previous correspondence
News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 200 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.
Tuesday 2 September 2008
18 comments:
Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.
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Update Richard Samuel had the courtesy to phone me up and promised to try to get the statutory consultees letters for China Gateway published, either on the planning website or if this proved technically impossible on the council’s website.
ReplyDeleteseems michael you are a bit of a pedant who costs us tax payers loads of dosh
ReplyDelete15.11 It may not have occurred to you that the council officers that I complained to don’t actually get paid any more because I do so. China Gateway is a very important local project and the views of the statutory consultees, especially those on the effects to our environment should be available for all of us to read online.
ReplyDeleteBut, while they are dealing with your pedantic questions they are not doing their real job. You are in the same mould as a certain Mr Kircaldy
ReplyDeletePs or Mr Card aka irritating bloke
ReplyDeleteanon 17 55
ReplyDeleteI think you mean "ps AND ...."
OR your statements lack logic
This is pedantry.
First time I ever wasted my time on it.
Anon 17:54.
ReplyDeleteIsn't responding to taxpayers' letters and concerns and providing a decent level of service the "real job" which Local Government staff are employed to do ???
I do know how you feel Michael as I have complained before to TDC and the whole process reminded me of the works of Kafka.
anon 1754 would only merit a response if he supported his assertion of "Pedantry". He failed to do this.
ReplyDeleteA rational person looking at his contributions would first ask if Child, Kirkaldie and Card are pursuant of the same issues ?
No they are not.
The next question a reasonable person would ask of anon. Are all three pursuing their causes with the same authority ?
Well no they are not.
Hence Anon's claim of pedantry implies his knowledge of all details of all three different issues and of all authorities with whom the three have corresponded.
The next reasonable question, supressing scornful laughter at anon, would be are any of the authorities judicial ?
Well yes.
So the reasonable man must conclude that if it is deemed in the public interest the Judicial determination will be made known and one must assume that the Judge will take exactly zero account of anon's bollix.
So the reasonable man must conclude that anon is a "know all"
But he has a redeeming feature in that he gives more reasonable people a good laugh at his expense.
Thanet council live in a parallel universe where they expect annual increases in pay for nothing, pensions not available in the commercial world, and free parking cutting off custom to margate traders.
ReplyDeleteThe words smug and useless come to mind when I think of the arrogance of these people.
"Irritation Warning"
ReplyDeleteLet us examine anon's rationale a little further.
The Police are public servants paid to do a job.
Their job is to investigate crime and arrest criminals.
One day a criminal writes to the Chief constable to commend an officer for saving a drowning child.
Anon got very angry about this.
And he pretty soon told the criminal to get out there committing crime as he pays his taxes for police to catch the crim not to read his commendatory letters.
17.54, if you cannot appreciate that TDC is one of the most secretive and authoritarian Councils in the UK, then your postings can be ignored. It is only persistent questioning and requests for information that enable anyone to extract from TDC what is going on.
ReplyDeleteOther Councils up and down the land embrace Community involvement by posting as much information as possible in electronic form. It saves THEIR officers time! TDC has an e-expert as a Councillor, I think of Simon Moores here. Why has the Cabinet not asked him to re-view and advise it in these matters and set up a Committee to drag TDC into the open information world we live in? What does TDC not want its own Councillors to know, let alone the common plebs like myself. Full marks to Michael and this Kircaldy if they are puruing TDC relentlessly for more information sharing with US, the electorate!
I wonder if anon has a thing or two to say under canvas para 11 ?
ReplyDeleteMy final word.
TDC also has a strange interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act by labelling some enquiries relating to relationships between the council and CGP as 'commercially sensitive' or' go away and mind your own business'. OK, that wasn't the actual reply but it was what it meant. I'm still waiting for a response 6 weeks after I first made my request on land-ownership by TDC at Manston.
ReplyDeleteOne of my children had a dream at 5.30 this morning and needed to tell me about it so I am somewhat stunned today however I will attempt to respond to the various comments.
ReplyDelete17.54 Some would consider their inaction favourable to some of their actions, however Richard telephoned me not I he, and I can honestly say that I felt that the discussion both productive and mutually beneficial.
Mr Friday I sometimes feel that when dealing with the council I have entered a realm beyond even Kafka where the officers I deal with, mostly charming and educated men, find themselves in the untenable position of having to explain logically and as though it were sensible, what is plainly ridiculous, I hope I manage to make this process as agreeable for them as possible.
Tony you and I produce real tangible goods and services, these people in the words of the song, went on to organise, to excuse them best I can is suspect once they had organised they couldn’t stop, and eventually chaos with a pension organised.
20.24 I did ask about this one with various governments and businesses paying considerable amounts for his advice, I believe what threw TDC was that he offered it for nothing, so they felt obliged to spurn it.
08.08 only six weeks I have been on this one for three months which compared to Pleasurama’s five years is a breeze.
Rick as always words fail me and I am not at all saying that I disagree with a lot of what you say.
I see that Rick is still writting pages and pages and pages that are too long for most of us to bother to read.
ReplyDeleteSimon Moores happens to be ok as snides go.
ReplyDeleteYou have infinitely more patience than me it seems. Also you manage to get TDC to reply to you - maybe they like you because largely they just ignore me.
ReplyDeleteMatt it’s not really a matter of patience, more the nature of my job as a shop assistant leaves me with a considerable amount of time where it’s difficult to do anything that requires concentration, like putting local books together.
ReplyDeleteAs far as getting replies goes, I suppose over the years addressing some local issues I have got to know several of the councillors and officers and so I now get a lot more in replies than I used to.