Cheshire East Council has refused to disclose the report into the Lyme Green fiasco.
One of our readers requested a copy of the report of the Designated Independent Person (DIP) in relation to Lyme Green under the Freedom of Information Act.
Having extended the 20 working day limit to consider the public interest in disclosure, the Council has announced that they will not release the report because it contains personal data - not only of those people whose conduct was under scrutiny, but also of those who gave evidence about others.
In addition, it contains personal data of the Designated Independent Person himself, given that his opinions are included.
The Council says that it would be 'unfair' to release the report containing personal information into the public domain and would lead to a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.
They also state that disclosure of the information to the public would constitute a breach of confidence, actionable by the person from whom the information was obtained or by individuals who are the subject of the information.
In addition, given the investigations are still ongoing, Cheshire East says the release of the report may prejudge or influence matters which are subject to further inquiry.
Referring to the interests of the public, the FOI response states "The Council has already taken significant steps to be open and transparent about the processes followed in the light of the Lyme Green matter.
"It has released numerous public statements through the media and there was the public report of the Audit & Governance Committee in June 2012. In addition, the public report on the Council's review of its management roles and responsibilities, considered by the Cabinet on 4th February 2013, makes clear references to the aspect of organisational culture, and the actions of some staff involved, in the Lyme Green matter.
"The Council has also indicated its intention, after all investigation processes arising out of the Report have been concluded (which is not yet the case), of publishing a summary of the Report, outlining the causes of and the main learning points from the matter. The Council considers that these steps go a long way towards satisfying the public interest in disclosure, and that it is not necessary to release the Report to meet that objective."
The Council's aborted plans to build a recycling station at Lyme Green Depot in Macclesfield have cost Cheshire East taxpayers in excess of £800,000, planning rules were broken, as the main contractor commenced work on the site prior to obtaining planning permission, and officers did not comply with EU Procurement Regulations.
The report by a Designated Independent Person into the causes of the failure of the Lyme Green development project, was completed and passed to the Council's staffing sub committee for consideration in December.
Since then three senior officers, whose actions were examined by the DIP, have left the Council's employment and Councillor Rod Menlove, who was responsible for this area as Environment Portfolio Holder, has resigned from his Cabinet post.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
The report of the Audit & Governance Committee in June 2012 made the positions (titles) of the council officers who had been involved in authorising the decisions made and how they had done so perfectly clear. I identified the titles of some of these individuals in a comment on this site back in December 2012. http://bit.ly/133HMkb
Having reviewed the report again, I have identified that the actions of one other council officer where discussed in the original audit and governance report. This was the “Asset Manager”
So some of the people under investigation were :-
1) The Strategic Director of Places (John Nicholson)
2) The Borough Solicitor (Caroline Elwood)
3) The Director of Finance and Business Services (Lisa Quinn)
4) The Professional Services and Framework Manager
5) The Waste and Recycling Manager
6) The Asset Manager
John Nicholson and Caroline Elwood resigned in December 2012 after publication of the DIP report http://bit.ly/133HMkb
Lisa Quinn was suspended in January 2013 and left the employment of the council by mutual content on 15th February 2013
http://bit.ly/UGIRec
http://bit.ly/ZfMBCi
So by my reconing the people who may still be under investigation because they appear not to have complied with council procedures are:
1) The Professional Services and Framework Manager
2) The Waste and Recycling Manager
3) The Asset Manager.
About 45 minutes of searching on the internet has identified possible names for both the Professional Services and Framework Manager and the Waste and Recycling Manager.
An FOI request that has been sent today will hopefully identify a possible name for the “Asset Manager”
The Council says that it would be 'unfair' to release the report containing personal information into the public domain and would lead to a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998. I suggest that names of some of the individuals have already been disclosed and that the remainder could be “blacked out”.
In response to "who is the asset manager?" the answer is one Arthur Pritchard.
Before submitting an appeal to the ICO, the council's own internal review and complaint process has to be exhausted. I intend to request a formal review in hte very near future.
I have studied carefully the response from the council to my request, and have to say I find the tortuous logic very unconvincing. Officers must know that both in law and morally they are answerable for their actions. If they have acted in a manner that does not comply with the law or with the council's constitution, the Freedom of Information Act is there to allow local residents to expose this wrongdoing and hold those officers and their political overseers to account. To claim that their data protection rights or right to privacy or respect for confidences might be breached is clearly at odds with the right for the public to know why their actions led to the abortive poject costing nearly £1m of taxpayer funding. Since Stuart has very clearly set out the reasons why their personal data is already in the public domain, and I have not requested additional sensitive personal data (eg addresses, staff appraisals or complaint information) this is a rather flimsy pretext to keep their actions secret. In addition, the council refuses to disclose the cost of the DIP investigation.
Secondly, the role of councillors, their actions or inactions, and has not been released in any way to the public. Stuart's summary of the statements and reports made to date only disclose that officers failed to follow the appropriate adopted council processes. What has not been explained is why councillors did not ensure the systems that they adopted on our behalf were so easily circumvented. Nor has it been explained why officers appeared to have been under so much pressure to deliver the new transfer station when members have claimed they knew nothing about it?
Finally, the council leadership has consistently claimed that a full and transparent enquiry would be held. This implies that the results would be in the public domain. Instead, we are now promised that the council's leader and interim chief excutive officer will produce a summary of the report at an unspecified date in the future. The only information that will therefore be in the public domain - whether that outlined by Stuart above, or information that might be released in the future - will have been sanctioned by the leader of the council. The report of the DIP remains the only independent, impartial report into the affair, and that is why it is vital to public confidence not only in the council but in the principle of freedom of information that it be released.
I have also put in a freedom of information request for an update on the total cost of this project including the cost of severance pay and the report of the independent report.
I am less interested in naming names but trying to understand why policies and procedures weren't followed and if there was a culture in the Cheshire East of undue pressure being applied to get projects through. I am also deeply concerned about the long-term planning by the authority and its understanding of what Cheshire East is, rather than drive to sell of the 'family silver', particularly green belt land it owns for development, in order to meet short-term objectives and political expediency. Vic Barlow, in this week's Express Advertiser, was scathing of the leadership of the authority and for once I could not disagree with him.
For me there is a worry about openness in the Council we have seen in the case of both Lyme Green and Tatton schemes that did not go out to competitive tender. We also have the appointment of an interim Chief Executive Officer and a period of about 9 months before the post was advertised, if a CEO of another authority is appointed we could be waiting up 6 months whilst s/he serves his notice. Whilst in the meantime CE with its interim has embarked on a major restructure. According to Private Eye (Rotten Boroughs) - Life of Ryley 22/2/13) during 2010/12 Kim Ryley did a similar exercise in Shropshire and the cost in redundancy pay was £11 million. Given that he left Shropshire in mid 2012 and will leave CE after the appointment of a permanent CEO he doesn't appear at first glance to have much experience of living with his decisions.
"Dear Mr Redgard
Requests for Information
It is with regret that I must inform you that Cheshire East Council, having spent an accumulated period of well in excess of 18 hours in locating, extracting and collating responses to your numerous requests for information over the past six months, will not be responding to any further request submitted by yourself for a period of six months.
If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Council. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF."
The following is my response to CEC sent just a few minutes ago.
"Thank you for your email and attached letter. You are correct that I have made numerous (21) FOI requests over the past six months. However, I do not agree with Cheshire East Councils interpretation of "The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and fees) Regulations 2004.
I therefore request for an internal review of the decision not to respond to any further requests submitted by myself for a period of six months.
May I refer you back to my email of 16th October 2012 (attached). My interpretation of the regulations is that the limit is to FOI's relating to a specific subject area / matter not a total of FOI's from one individual on different subject areas / matters.
The 21 FOI's that I have requested from Cheshire East relate to several different issues as detailed below and on the attached pdf file.
In the last six months I have made the following FOI requests to Cheshire East Council
1) 10 relating to the Cheshire East Local Development Framework. ("Local Plan") Documents
2) 7 relating to issues surrounding the transfer of a Cheshire East Council Asset ("Romanys Caravan") to "The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council".
3) And a further 4 separate FO's relating to 4 separate individual subject areas/ matters.
I have therefore made 21 FOI's on 6 different subject areas / matters.
I have also issued two further FOI requests to Cheshire East Council on week commencing Monday 18th February and copies of these are attached. As yet I have not received notification that these have been received or allocated a reference number. In the interim can you please confirm that these have been received and provide details of the allocated reference numbers."
It will be interesting to see if their response changes and whether I too have to appeal to the Information Commission officers office as well.
I couldn't possibly suggest you use a pseudonym... ;-)
They can't prove it's the same person so would struggle to refuse to answer a legitimate question. They can refuse if qu's are repetitive or vexatious though.