Corporate data under FOI

 

When Mr Mustard saw this FOI information in the online register he thought it must be a mistake, he thought the data would not be disclosable but he was wrong, as he sometimes is.

He took advice from a proper expect in the area and was told this:

Take that as your cue to ask any questions you like about councils and companies.

If you get a ZipCar transferred liability Notice to Owner or postal PCN do email mrmustard@zoho.com as liability transfer is often done wrongly.

The right Royal Borough of Greenwich

 

Last November Mr Mustard was asked to help contest a PCN issued for being on a single yellow line in Burnley St in Greenwich. You will note the absence of a time plate adjacent to the yellow line after which you should take the hint that you are probably in a CPZ (controlled parking zone). You will have driven past a zone entry sign somewhere, which sets the rules.

Mr Mustard sometimes writes very short challenges, this one, sent in November 21 said:

'The restriction was not communicated by adequate signage'.

It was in April 22 that the response came. Mr Mustard now knows that there was a backlog in responding to informal challenges at that time in Greenwich. Formal representations, made in response to the Notice to Owner, have to be responded to within 56 days otherwise the council has to cancel.

By contrast, the informal rejection was long.

Note that twice the recipient is told that if they don't pay now the discount will be gone. Well, Mr Mustard doesn't care about that as he doesn't intend that the motorist should pay anything in this case. Not taking the 'issue' (why not say PCN?) through the Appeals process loses the opportunity to pay zero. It was, naturally, a templated response, written using the help of 'LetterSmarti' per Greenwich's records. Mr Mustard read it very carefully and then asked some questions. Here they are, with answers and some further comment by Mr Mustard.

This response is patent nonsense. Saying the signage is inadequate is a fundamental challenge to the validity of the PCN, it isn't a request to be let off.

As the challenge made was about signage one would have thought the council would be checking what notes were made about signage. Mr Mustard has those notes which include 'Greenwich Town Centre CPZ' but the FOI response didn't tell him that. It is actually CPZ 'G' in any event.

Mr Mustard sees councils who falsely regret they haven't cancelled a PCN  or who empathise when they are doing the exact opposite. They should be banned from such annoying false utterances.

 

A precise and correct response, so rare.

This response was, to put it politely, patent nonsese. The PCN was for being 'Parked in a restricted street during prescribed hours' which means you were alleged to be on a single or double yellow line without a loading restriction (as otherwise the PCN would refer to loading/unloading). At this point a smart council would realise they are facing a worthy opponent who is going to identify all their errors and use them. Greenwich Council aren't smart.

As for the attempt to semantically explain away the difference between a restriction and a prohibition on loading, there is only one sort of traffic order which ever applies to loading/unloading which is to ban it and that is covered by both supposedly distinct words. This part of the FOI response was written by a weasel.

Now this was thoroughly unhelpful. 'Kerbside' which kerb? there are lots of them in Greenwich. Here is one example which Mr Mustard found without wasting any shoe leather:

The sign, which is at the edge of the Greenwich Town Centre CPZ does not have any loading restriction marked upon it and that is probably why the 'as above' non answer was given.

Finally, Greenwich have to admit they made an error. If you make an error that will be a penalty of £130, if Greenwich council make one it makes no material difference. Oh yes it does as the response, which has a financial impact, was materially wrong. One can only conclude that either LetterSmarti or the writer isn't very smart. At this point a sensible parking officer would have cancelled the PCN but no, they can't do that, they will spend the rest of the day crying into their tea if they cancel something, they are never wrong, except they are!

By the way, is is 900m from the single yellow line to the applicable sign. CPZs need to go, every line should have a clear adjacent sign.

Oh dear, another embarrassing response because the real answer, which is clear for us all to see, is zero repeater plates.

Hard to answer other than in the affirmative that there are no signs at the location as there aren't any.

After giving Greenwich Council plenty of reasons to cancel, Mr Mustard opened the door for them to do so. They did not walk through it which of course meant they were in for a longer fight as Mr Mustard was confident that he would prevail at the independent tribunal as he had other aces in his hand. 

Greenwich Council had just dealt Mr Mustard an extra card. The PCN was issued on street on 21 November 2021. The legislation says that a Notice to Owner must be issued within 6 months which would be 21 May 2022. Greenwich Council were offering to break the law. Mr Mustard smiled and put the file away and waited for time to pass. The PCN has now been cancelled which will be a story for another day, it does concern the 6 months but he doesn't think Greenwich have realised their error yet.

The end.

Hackney Council FOI - 'Sorry' not in their vocabulary

 

Mount Pleasant Lane

Before we get to the purpose of the blog Mr Mustard just wants to say that if you drive through this gap you are an ignorant or an incompetent driver, you choose (why?, 6 signs, 6!). Remember Mr Mustard's mantra, 'planter = penalty' (probably). Still unsure? google 'flying motorbike sign'.

So here are the two responses received to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. The first one was patently wrong, there being no ambiguity in Mr Mustard's eyes.

If Hackney Council were unsure what was required they should have asked for clarification. Mr Mustard would have respected the council if they had simply said, 'sorry, we misunderstood what you wanted and here are the new figures' but instead they blame Mr Mustard for asking ambiguous questions, that is an unedifying approach.

It is very concerning that 1 in 8 PCNs have reached a bailiff. Part of the reason for this is the disaster which was DVLA in the early stages of the pandemic when they didn't have on line systems for updating the address at which a vehicle is kept.

On the positive side Hackney Council were more than fair in sending out zero value warning notices for 3 months which gave the people for whom this was a regular route the opportunity to chance their habits for free. Thereby Hackney achieved their objective of changing traffic flow without soaking the motorist in the process.

End.

Not quite the end as there is another story coming about this location, although Mr Mustard might let the newspapers have it.

Lewisham lose

 

A long battle which ended up with an order for disclosure.

One wonders why the council fought for so long to keep the cctv of one of their own vehicles out of the public domain as the image of the driver wasn't likely to be that clear, their name was already known, and a pixellated version could easily have been supplied at the time of first request.

The bigger question is what the council were up to sending a PCN to themselves, a monumentally pointless PCN which involves taking money out of the council's left pocket and putting it into the right one. All this time and expense wasted.

Middling managers

Having seen details of a meeting between the Chief Executive of Barnet Council and Nic Beech of Middlesex University, Mr Mustard wondered what the different ways where that they were planning to collaborate on in their 'partnership' (a much misused word is 'partnership', partnerships normally requiring formal documents setting out the obligations and rights of each party or else they aren't worth the paper they aren't written on).

Mr Mustard followed up on his wonderment by asking Middlesex University to enlighten him under the Freedom of Information legislation, viz:

(Two titans if ever Mr Mustard saw them, yes, the statues of Atlas on the cupboard behind)

It took three weeks but the answer came:

Mr Mustard wasn't convinced as he didn't think that two such well paid managers would have, or should have, a meeting without writing down a single word on the back of an envelope at the very least, or a jot on a napkin, a telephone number on the back of their hand, even electronic notes in their phones but no nothing, they were only having an informal meet and greet and not discussing anything substantive like a partnership as the tweet claimed. Something stank here.

Mr Mustard pondered. He changed tack, he sent a carefully crafted and detailed Freedom of Information request to John Hooton of Barnet Council. This is it.

So there wasn't a formal agenda but a meeting arranged by email:

This was followed up by Laura Norton the Corporate Communications and Stakeholder Manager (Mr Mustard boggles at such an esoteric title) who was in the meeting despite it allegedly only being a meet and greet and thus not substantive. Mr Mustard notes that the University didn't mention her attendance at the meeting in their reply.

So far from a pally 'meet and greet' as the University alleged in their response, it was 'a useful discussion' and topics included 'Communications' and 'Diversity and Inclusion' (coyly not mentioned in the University's official FOI reply) and there were 'useful conversations'. This email should have been disclosed by the University as it came within the scope of Mr Mustard's request. Anyone would think they didn't want a local blogger to take any interest in what they are doing (which is now probably working out how they will survive in the post pandemic period).

John Hooton followed up quite quickly in his email of 13 February.

 In the cover letter from Barnet Council extra information was profferred:

There should be an apostrophe in Council's

Ooh gosh a meeting to explain that a Council provides local services and a University teaches students, it must have been fascinating.

It is an affront to democracy that the CEO has so many informal meetings with 'partner' organisations, notice should be given of them and agendas published and action points published. If that isn't done it is far too easy to conclude either that they are just so much hot air or that dirty back room deals are being done. Far more would be achieved with an agenda and in a shorter time period. The well known Dummies series of books has one which includes a section on managing meetings and it includes having an agenda and action points.

Who else thinks that the University's FOI response did not meet with the letter or spirit of the Act? If you ask them any questions make sure you know the answer before you do and then jerk on their chain hard if they are economic with the actuality.

A really surprising omission from the meeting is any discussion of the replacement West Stand at Saracens for which Middlesex University are the supposedly anchor tenant, vital to the economic success of the project. Wasn't the risk to public funds worth a single word?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Copyright in sets of meeting minutes

Once Mr Mustard found out about the warning circular sent by London Councils, some questions came to his mind. Here they are along with the answers.

3. Similarly to the anonymous employee who was over-using his/her initiative Mr Mustard thinks that the circular that was sent breached his expectation that the circular would not have been sent and his name effectively disclosed.

4. No point in having in-house FOI experts if you don't ask them the necessary questions at the material time.

5. There was no need to do anything other than respond to the enquiries actually made.

6. So the circular that was sent should never have been sent as providing advice on FOI is not part of the remit of London Councils. All London boroughs have their own experts or access to them.

7. In short, Yes.

8. Very odd that different boroughs sent Mr Mustard minutes with different dates, none of which were correct.

9. London Councils were blind.

11. Oh no, no copyright in the minutes and yet the following bodies told Mr Mustard there was so he could not have them. 

Ealing Council, Enfield Council, Harrow Council, Hounslow Council, Lambeth Council, Lewisham Council, Newham Council, Sutton Council, Waltham Forest Council & Wandsworth Council.

What a shocking lack of knowledge of FOI and Copyright.

13. There was discussion of the subject of minutes and copyright though. The next set of minutes will be interesting. Want to bet that they are even briefer now?

Parking departments can run from Mr Mustard but they can't hide.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

London Councils - not applicant blind

When Mr Mustard was struggling to obtain the full set of documents from London Councils and the names of the parking managers or substitutes who attended, he decided to go straight to the councils concerned as they would, if the employees were senior, have to tell him their names. He did this on 13 September.

On the very same day London Councils had heard from some boroughs of Mr Mustard's* request for the minutes etc. and they decided to email other councils in London to warn them of the likely request. Bo so doing, they effectively outed Mr Mustard as having already asked London Councils the same question. The whole point of FOI is that it is applicant blind. It isn't when bodies take it upon themselves to send circulars like the one above.

What London Councils didn't point out was that they told Mr Mustard there weren't any documents (in addition to the agenda and minutes) appertaining to the meeting. That was odd, and wrong, as the minutes themselves referred to two documents about PCN codes and utility suspension charges.

The councils around London weren't holding the document on behalf of London Councils but in their own capacity as parking authorities for their own areas.

Mr Mustard though that the 'if they are still held' comment was an unspoken suggestion to chuck away any minutes that individual officers had taken so that they did not have to be disclosed. Certainly many council did not have any notes to disclose.

You can rely on Mr Mustard to battle to the end. The denouement is coming soon.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

*Whether or not any indivdual council who consulted London Councils released Mr Mustard's name is not a question he asked.

Rhetorical FOI question?

Mr Mustard was somewhat surprised to receive a response to a Freedom of Information request this week as he didn't remember making such a request. After a bit of searching he found the PCN challenge which included his supposed question. Mr Mustard thought he had merely conjectured or make a rhetorical question which is not of course intended to elicit an answer (and by hazard he had left off the question mark). A famous rhetorical question is illustrated in this clip:

Here is Mr Mustard's question and answer.

Mr Mustard is pleased with the helpfulness of the answer but has asked for the supposed request to be closed down as he knows that good challenges get rejected all the time and doesn't need to know a precise value of them. 

The thought came about because a letter in the name of John Wild, the parking process manager (but almost certainly written by an employee of NSL) said you couldn't stop on a single yellow line to drop children off at a nursery and a different parent had a personal email from John Wild (for definite) saying that case law provides an exemption for parents who are picking up / dropping off young children. Mr Mustard is looking forward to this case at the adjudicators.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard