NPS Group receives a large amount of public money, but doesn’t consider itself subject to the Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations 2004. They get round their obligations using a Teckal Exemption which states: – ‘a. in order to satisfy the first condition of the Teckal exemption, the controlling contracting authority (or contracting authorities) must possess “a power of decisive influence over both strategic objectives and significant decisions of the other legal entity” (i.e., the more independently the entity in question is able to act, the less likely it is for the Teckal examption to apply).’
We see from the reports below from Devon County Council, Norfolk County Council and Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council that they possess very little power of decisive influence – they don’t seem to have a clue what is going on.
There appear to be very serious problems with NPS Stockport and NPS South West.
I questioned Stockport Council regarding overcharging by NPS on the toxic waste dump school at North Reddish for a very shoddy job. The Council Solicitor, Barry Khan, the Chief Executive Eamonn Boylan, the Leader Susan Derbyshire and the rest of the Executive Councillors knew of the problems with NPS, yet they branded my questions on this matter “vexatious”.
