FOI 1044 - still ongoing

I would love to tell you dear reader the answer FOI 1044 but it is still ongoing since June. It started with Mr Mustard asking the following:

14 June 2011

Dear Councillor Rams

I refer to the press release of 7 June 2011 which is on the Council's website.

I note that you said "We have funded the Big Society Innovation Bank with reductions in senior management pay as the council has adapted to the changing financial climate."

I also note that "In total there will be £600,000 over three years with £200,000 available in 2011/12"

Please send me a list showing which senior management have had their pay cut and by how much to reach the total of £200,000 for 2011/12. Please provide this information in the form of an xls spreadsheet.

Yours sincerely

and getting a partial reply as follows :

16 June 2011

Thank you for your email.

We made reduction in our senior management pay bill last year, some of which has gone to this bank. I am sure you will agree this is a great initiative and was launched yesterday.

Attached is the link to the report from October last year.

http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/reports/reportdetail.asp?ReportID=9720.

All the best

Cllr Rams

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Not convinced, this led to further questions including this one sent to the FOI section - ref #1044C

22 June 2011

Dear Sirs

Paragraph 9.5 of the agenda for the above meeting lists 5 deleted posts.

Please tell me the amount paid as compensation for loss of office in each case.

Yours sincerely

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Then the fun and games started ( Mr Mustard enjoys fun & games )

22 June 2011

I write in response to your request, received by us on 20 June 2011, which reads:

“Paragraph 9.5 of the agenda for the above meeting [General Functions Committee 25 October 2010] lists 5 deleted posts. Please tell me the amount paid as compensation for loss of office in each case.”

We have processed this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Response

I have decided to refuse this request relying on the exemption contained in section 21 of the FOIA.

The amounts paid to senior officers for compensation for loss of office are published in the council’s Statement of Accounts.

An unaudited version of the Statement of Accounts for financial year 2010-11 was published as report to the Audit Committee meeting on 16 June 2011. To view this report please follow this link:

http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/documents/documentreportlist.asp?intSubSectionID=12&intSectionID=6

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Did the answer contain the answer. No, of course not! Mr Mustard enters into the spirit of the game.

22 June 2011

I wish to appeal against this refusal ( which was uncharacteristically unhelpful as it would have taken you 5 minutes to answer ) on the grounds that the information is not where you say and/or if it is, it is ambiguous or incomplete.

The posts about which I have asked, as described in the GFC report, were :

Deputy for Adult Social Services
Deputy Chief Executive for Environment
Director for Environment & Operations
Director for Planning, Housing and Regeneration
Director for Corporate Services

none of those titles are exactly replicated in the unaudited accounts ( page 67 attached ) and given the plethora of Directors, Heads, Assistants, Deputies etc that Barnet Council employ it is not for me to assume that a post with slightly different description is the same post.

In addition some of the possible matches have no compensation payment and given that they were forced to leave this seems unlikely to be the case.

Please now provide the requested information without making me trawl through documents that are over 100 pages long. That is not within the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act.

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Then Barnet Council tried boring Mr Mustard with a long reply ( he understands this tactic which doesn't work on him )

19 July 2011

I am writing in relation to your email to the London Borough of Barnet (the Council), received on 22 June 2011, requesting an internal review of the Council’s handling of your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the FOIA) for access to the following:

“Paragraph 9.5 of the agenda for the above meeting [General Functions Committee 25 October 2010] lists 5 deleted posts. Please tell me the amount paid as compensation for loss of office in each case.”

You have requested a review as you are not satisfied that the information you have requested is reasonably accessible to you by other means.

I have reviewed your request and my response is below.  

Response

The initial response relied on the exemption in section 21 of the FOIA (information accessible by other means) to refuse your requests as details of the amounts paid to senior officers for compensation for loss of office are published in the Council’s Statement of Accounts (the SoA)and provided a link to that document.

The initial response did not confirm or deny whether the information available in the SoA included the information requested in relation to the five deleted posts referred to in your request. In this respect the Council did not satisfy its duty under section 1(1)(a) of the FOIA to confirm or deny whether information is held.

I can confirm that the Council holds information about the compensation paid for loss of office resulting from deletion of the five posts referred to in your request.

Details of compensation paid for the loss of office in relation to four of the posts has been published in the SoA. I am satisfied that the exemption in section 21 of the FOIA (information accessible by other means) was correctly applied in relation to these posts. However, additional information should have been provided to assist in the identification of relevant job titles. That information is set out in the table below under ‘Additional Information’.

Details of the compensation paid for the loss of office in relation to one of the posts referred to in your request, Director for Planning, Housing and Regeneration, is not published in the SoA. This is because the officer in that post received compensation for loss of office during the financial year 2011/12. Accordingly, that information will be published in the SoA for that year. The refusal notice below refers to this information.

Additional Information

Deleted post

Information about loss of office

Director for Adult Social Services

Details of the compensation for loss of office received by the officer in post are published in the SoA against ‘Acting Director of Health Integration’.

Deputy Chief Executive for Environment

Details of the compensation for loss of office received by the officer in post are published in the SoA against ‘Executive Director for Environment & Development’.

Director for Environment and Operations

Details of the compensation for loss of office received by the officer in post are published in the SoA against ‘Director of Environment and Transport’.

Director for Planning, Housing and Regeneration

See refusal notice below.

Director for Corporate Services

Details of the compensation for loss of office received by the officer in post are published in the SoA against ‘Director of Corporate Services’.

Refusal Notice

I am applying section 22 (intended for future publication) of the FOIA to withhold the information requested in relation to the Director for Planning, Housing and Regeneration.

The processing of requests for information under the FOIA must be applicant and purpose-blind. Accordingly, disclosure of information under the FOIA is considered to be disclosure to the world at large and my decision is based on this understanding.

The Council will submit the information requested by you for review by the Council’s Audit Committee in June 2012. The information requested by you will be published at least 5 clear working days before the date of the Audit Committee meeting and will be accessible here: http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/index.asp?intSubSectionID=-1&intSectionID=1

Disclosure of the information to the world at large under the FOIA before this time would inhibit the ability of the Audit Committee to exercise their Constitutional function to provide independent scrutiny of the authority’s financial performance.

Where the section 22 (intended for future publication) exemption covers the information requested the information must still be disclosed unless the public interest in maintaining the exemption is greater than the public interest in disclosing it. This additional stage is called the “public interest test”. The arguments we considered when applying this test to your request are:

Arguments for disclosure
Arguments for maintenance of the exemption

Promoting the general public interest in disclosure of information.
Ensuring elected members of the Audit Committee can exercise their Constitutional functions independently.

I am satisfied that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest for disclosure prior to the intended future publication in this instance and that the exemption in section 22 (intended for future publication) is applicable to the information requested.

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So as long as one can translate council job titles from one title to another without a key you are OK. If the information is too embarrassing to release because the number is too high then we will try and make you wait until June 2012 for the answer in the hope that the storm has passed.

This is what he sent next. Mr Mustard is always civil to council employees although he may write in a direct style ( it is not intended to upset individual officers who are just doing their job ).

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5 August 2011

Dear Ms Wilson Pointer

Thank you for your email of 3 August. 

I am going to appeal to the ICO about the decision of Barnet Council not to release the amount paid to the outgoing Director for Planning, Housing and Regeneration on the grounds that the information is intended for publication in the future as the publication date is a year after the payment date and this is a risible excuse.

You say "Disclosure of the information to the world at large under the FOIA before this time would inhibit the ability of the Audit Committee to exercise their Constitutional function to provide independent scrutiny of the authority’s financial performance." which is the most ludicrous and misleading response I have received from Barnet Council. 

The Audit Committee will be presented in June 2012 with the draft Accounts for the year to 31 March 2012. The 2011 draft accounts ran to 128 pages. They were on the agenda at the meeting of the Audit Committee on 16 June 2011 and I was present throughout the meeting.

This is what the agenda says the duties of the Audit Committee are in relation to the draft Accounts :-

Constitution Part 3, Section 2 details the functions of the Audit Committee including “To review and approve the annual Statement of Accounts. Specifically, to consider whether appropriate accounting policies have been followed and whether there are concerns arising from the financial statements or from the audit that need to be brought to the attention of the Council”.

So the committee is approving statements of fact e.g. amounts paid in compensation to departing employees. They cannot change the amount paid some one year previously and so disclosure of the sum paid to the outgoing Director simply does not affect their ability to scrutinize the Accounts. It's not as if they spend long on them either. All of at most 20 minutes this year. I don't call that effective scrutiny.

In addition I refer you to this guidance on timing from the website of the Information Commissioner.

a) The timing of publication

Given that there is already an intention to publish, the critical issue in deciding whether to respond to a request for information is one of timing. Generally, the sooner the intended date of publication, the better the case for maintaining the exemption.  

Why do I get the feeling that the amount paid is going to be shockingly high and that is why Barnet Council want to cover it up for as long as possible? I also think that Barnet Council are showing a general reluctance to embrace the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act.

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The matter is now with the Information Commissioner to see what happens next.

Is this a case that Cllr Thomas can rightly complain took 9 hours to respond to? No it isn't. By refusing to release information which will eventually come into the public domain Barnet Council have themselves caused extra time to be spent on the matter. They didn't help by being so sloppy when it came to job titles.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard