Dealing with the council over the Pleasurama development one sometimes finds that one is pretty much at a loss for words, trying to obtain the development agreement has become a quest where aspects of it border on the surreal.Ten days ago this astonishing saga was compounded when TDCIT failed to send the vital email, this should have gone to both the information commissioner’s office and to me, not only did the email not send but the TDC mail server didn’t tell the officer concerned that it hadn’t sent.
The complaints officer at the information commissioners office only found out that he hadn’t received it because he found out that it hadn’t sent from my website.
The problems that relate to the council not being able to reliably send an email either to me or to another government department seem pretty serious to me.
Anyway I have now sent them my request for an internal review and will wait and see what happens next.
The correspondence is published at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/foi/id19.htm the information commission’s in blue, the council’s in black and mine in red.
oh let me see I would think you will get an email from the head of legal services 39 days after it has landed on his desk that he agrees with the original decision, and he probably reviewed for all of 2 minutes...... gosh i am cynical.
ReplyDelete20 working days Michael that's the turn around for the initial request.
ReplyDeleteI find it utterly bizarre that TDC continually whines over having to deal with the FOI(A) and perfectly legitimate requests for information?
Also bizarre is obtaining information via the Audit period - now that's a real bundle of joy.
The sad thing is that we pay people inside TDC to do a job not Cllrs, so Guys and Girls at TDC do it,...its us the local tax payer that pays the main tax bill and not the Developers - so stop running off to Cllrs complaining, it does not frankly cut the mustard.
Malcolm
Reminds me of Mountbatten's comment about Ghandi. "Must cost a fortune to keep you so poor".
ReplyDeleteMust cost a fortune avoiding answering FOI requests (Perhaps Rear View Mirror, with an ever anxious eye on TDC costs, should complain ?)
00.07 I really don’t think any of the council officers know where to go on this one as the past errors mean that they appear to be forcing the construction of a very dangerous development indeed.
ReplyDeleteMany of the officers that I have spoken, to off the record, seem to agree with me on the basics, but the tangle of legislation by which they are bound prevents anything that could be called common sense from prevailing.
Frankly if I were an office trying to answer my questions about it I believe that I would probably put them to one side for as long as possible.
Malcolm I have already made it quite clear to them that I will probably be able to obtain the documents legally, and so be able to use them, from the auditor during the audit period, as the auditor isn’t bound by the commercial sensitivity issue.
He is only bound not to release the personal details of those involved something I already hold.
The trouble with the way council officers careers work, they only have to stay in the job for a relatively short time, not make any waves, keep the plates spinning and they can move off to an even more highly paid job in another authority.
Richard, nice quote.
is there a set process you have to go through to get the information during the audit process ?
ReplyDelete