Ref 1. Main Road Cleaning
Complaint submitted to The Information Commissioner

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Attachment to letter of 5th June 2008 to the Information Commissioner’s Office

Complaint against London Borough Of Hillingdon
Ref: Main Road Cleaning – Request For Documents 05/11/07

Supporting Documents

Please note all relevant e-mails have been attached.  This note contains only refers to the more significant ones.

Statement of Facts

I e-mailed Ms Kathy Sparks, LBH Deputy Director of Environment and Consumer Protection, of 05/11/07 as follows:

Main Road Cleaning – request for documents

Ms Sparkes,
Could you please let me have a copy (preferably as an e-mail attachment) of:

1. The A40 programme referred to by Colin Russell in his e-mail to me of 12th April entitled "Re: Fly Tipped Rubbish On A40"

2. Any documents / registers/ logs recording the cleaning that took place on the A40 from 1st April to present time.

3. Any instructions that the Call Centre has in regard to dealing with reports from the public of fly tipping on mains roads e.g. the A40 .

I look forward to hearing from you.

Peter Silverman
www.hillingdon-watch-org.uk 
20 Kingsend, Ruislip, Middx HA4 7DA
01895 625770

I submitted a complaint under the LBHs FOI complaints procedure to Mario Leo, LBH  Deputy Borough Solicitor, on 20/12/07. This was passed by Mr Leo to Richard Ingle, LBH Freedom Of Information Officer, to whom I should have sent it in the first place on 03/01/08. It read:

Mr Leo, I am writing to you in your capacity of LBH Freedom of Information Officer under the Council’s Freedom Of Information Act Complaints Procedure.

My complaint is as follows:

On 5th November I e-mailed Ms Kathy Sparks, LBH Deputy Director Environment & Consumer Protection, asking for copies of three documents. The e-mail was headed  “Main Road Cleaning –request for documents”. On 6th December, not having received any reply or acknowledgment, I e-mailed her again asking when I could expect one.

On 13th December, still not having received any response I e-mailed Ms Philomena Bach, LBH Director Environment & Consumer Protection, asking her to expedite a response.

On 13th December I received an e-mail from Helan Smallbones acknowledging my e-mail and saying Kathy Sparks would respond.
Also, on 13th I received an e-mail from Kathy Sparks to which she had attached a number of excel spreadsheets none of which constituted the documents requested.

I e-mailed Ms Bach again on 17th December stating the position in regard to the three documents.

It took LBH 28 working days to respond to my request for documents. The current position in respect to the three documents is a follows:

1- A40 Cleaning Programme  The Council  have stated that the document does not exist. This took 28 days instead of the statutory 20 days.

2 – Documents /Register / Logs recording cleaning that took place on A40 from 1st April to present time (5th Nov).  No documents have been supplied; no clear, unequivocal statement has been made as to whether any documents exist.  This is after 33 days and counting.

3 – Any instructions that the Call Centre has in regard to dealing with reports from the public of fly tipping on main Roads e.g. the A40.
The information provided in Ms Sparks e-mail of 13th Dec was not in the form requested i.e. a document. No statement has been made as to whether or not such a document exists. 33 days and counting.

I have attached the relevant e-mails.
I look forward to hearing from you.

Peter Silverman
www.hillingdon-watch.org.uk  
20 Kingsend, Ruislip, HA4 7DA
01895 625770

On 21/12/07 I received an e-mail from Ms K Sparks which made no reference to my complaint of 20/12/07.  It did however touch on the three topics of complaint.

On 28/01/08 I e-mailed the Borough Solicitor saying that I had not received a reply, or even an acknowledgment, to my e-mail of 20/12/07. On 01/02/08 I asked the Borough Solicitor to acknowledge the receipt of this e-mail which he did on 11/02/08.

On 11/02/08 I received a response from Mr Leo in which he said he had passed my complaint of 220/12/07 on to Mr Ingle, LBH Freedom Of Information Officer on 03/01/08.  He said no action was taken by Mr Ingle as he was advised by Ms Sparks that she had responded to my FOI request on 21/12/07. 

On 12/02/08 I e-mailed Mr Leo to this effect. There followed a further exchanges of e-mails on 13th (2), 14th and 28th February.   No reply, acknowledgment has been received to my last e-mail of 28th February.

Complaint about handling of request for information

1- A40 Cleaning   It took 28 days instead of the statutory 20 days for the Council to say that the document did not exist. See e-mail of 13/12/07 from K Sparks. I had to send progress this twice before I was given this information.

2 – Documents /Register / Logs recording cleaning that took place on A40 from 1st April to present time (5th Nov).   The situation as at 20/12/07 was as stated in my e-mail to M Leo of 20/12/07 i.e.  ”No documents have been supplied; no clear, unequivocal statement has been made as to whether any documents exist”.  

The next day K Sparks e-mailed me to say: “Supervisors make notes in their working diary which detail the names of staff deployed on certain jobs and this enables staff allocation to be planned on a week by week basis.  It also notes personal information such as sickness and annual leave, etc.  I am sure you will understand that it would not be appropriate for such information to be copied and passed on to the general public”. This in my opinion was not a clear statement regarding available documents.

Subsequently after further chasing I was sent a list of dates when the A40 was cleaned (but not copies of documents) in an e-mail of 27/02/08 from Patrician Nimmo. This was over 3 months after my request and numerous e-mails.

3 – Any instructions that the Call Centre has in regard to dealing with reports from the public of fly tipping on main Roads e.g. the A40.

My e-mail of 05/11/07 was headed “Main Road Cleaning - request for documents” . The response came in K Sparks e-mail of 13th Dec in which she says: ”  The Contact Centre have been advised to refer details of any  flytips  which do not cause an obstruction or a danger to the street cleansing team. Those which cause an obstruction are dangerous or are emergencies are referred direct to TfL”.
This response was not made within the required 20 days and was not in the form requested i.e. a document.

Compliant about the handling of my subsequent complaints under the Council FOI Complaints Procedure.

My complaint of 20/12/07 reached R Ingle the Councils FOI Officer on 03/01/08.  It had been inadvertently sent by me to Mr M Leo, the Deputy Borough Solicitor. It was not acknowledged.   To get a response I had to e-mail  Mr R Alagh, the Borough Solicitor on 28/01/08. 

Eventually I received a reply from Mr Leo on 11/02/08.  He said that “When Mr Ingle did look into he was advised that Ms Kathy Sparks had responded to your FOI request on the 21/12/07 with further information. It was Mr Ingle assumption, and I have to say that I would have made the same assumption, that your FOI had been dealt with and thus he did not follow the matter up.”
There is no indication that Mr Ingle had even looked at the e-mail of 21/12/08.

I e-mailed Mr Leo on 12/02/08 to say I did not regard his response as adequate.  Please refer to his reply of 13/02/08, my reply of the same date, his of the 14/02/08 and mine of 28/02/08 to which I have received no response.

It is quite disgraceful in my opinion that my formal complaint was dealt with in such an offhand and unsympathetic manner.

I would be grateful if you could look into these complaints.

Peter Silverman
www.hillingdon-watch.orog.uk
20 Kingsend
Ruislip
Middlesex
HA4 7DA
0185 625770