Ref 1. Main Road Cleaning

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On 5th November 2007 I asked LBH for copies of documents regarding the cleaning of the A40.  I asked for the cleaning programme they had referred to, the cleaning log from 1st April and any instructions the Call Centre had about fly tipping on main roads.

It took over the statutory 20 working days to for them to tell me that the programme did not exist.  After 33 days they had not  supplied a copy of the log or informed me whether or not it was held. While they made comments about the fly tipping policy they did not supply a copy of any instructions nor did they confirm whether such  a document was held.  This is in breach of their statutory duty to “confirm or deny”.  The information that was provided was not provided in the the 20 working days specified under the FOIA. 

I complained to the Council.   The complaint was received by the LBH Information Officer on 03/01/08.  No response or acknowledgment was received. I therefore e-mailed the Borough Solicitor to this effect on 28/01/08.  After further and fruitless e-mails I submitted a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner on 5th June about the off hand way in which the matter had been dealt with by LBH.

The Information Commissioner’s Office wrote to LBH on 23rd July asking them to conduct an internal review or provide their comments.   LBH did not respond to this request. On 16th September the ICO’s office rang LBH to progress a response.  The ICO were told that LBH would neither conduct an internal review or provide any comments.   The matter was then passed to one of their case resolution teams.

On 23rd May 2009 the ICO wrote to me to say that ” the Commissioner’s Office is concerned about the way the Council handled your request... As a result the ICO’s Good Practice and Enforcement Team will shortly be in contact with the Council in order to help it improve its performance.”

In their letter to LBH  of the same date they pointed out that LBH had not stated whether information requested was held within the statutory 20 days and that they had failed to provide information within the statutory 20 days. They went on to draw the Council’s attention to their best practice guidance notes for public authorities in particular that they should complete their internal review (i.e. complaints) procedures within 40 working days, that they must acknowlede all complaints and give a target date for a decision and that complaints procedures should consist of no more than one stage.

This complaint also initiated the letter from an ICO Enforcement Officer  to LBH dated 3rd June 2009 in which he expressed concerns about LBH’s failings in a number of areas and initmated that formal action might be taken against the Council.

Case closed.

Complaint to Information Commissioner