Stockport Council News

http://www.macclesfield-express.co.uk/news/lyme-green—people-involved-8175062

Monday, June 03, 2013 11:17 AM

FOI Request 806332 – Internal Review

Dear Ms Oliver

Regarding your request for a copy of this agreement, I have spoken to my colleagues in the Compliance team, and have been advised that there is no written agreement that we can supply.

Because of the nature of this issue, and other similar requests to yours, Mrs Raine – who has now retired – made a verbal agreement over the phone with the ICO, that requests for an Internal Review regarding this report could go directly to them. As we’ve previously advised, since the letter you received has come directly from the Chief Executive, there is no-one higher to conduct such a review within Cheshire East, so the ICO will be conducting this process themselves.

If you contact them accordingly, they will advise you what they are going to be doing, and will also let us know that you have made contact.

I hope this explains the situation for you.

Yours sincerely

Martin Johnson
Customer Relations & Compliance
Cheshire East Council
Westfields
Sandbach

—————————————————–

02 June 2013 08:34

Re: 20130530InternalReviewResponse

Dear Mr Johnson

Please may I have a copy of the ICO agreement.

Many thanks

Sheila
—————————————————————–

30 May 2013 15:5

Dear Ms Oliver

Further to your email of 23 May requesting an internal review concerning the Lyme Green DIP Report, I attach the response to this for you. Please accept my apologies for the delay in response.

Yours sincerely

Martin Johnson

Customer Relations & Compliance

——————————————————————-

PROTECT

29th July 2013

Case Reference Number IRQ0503896

Dear Ms Oliver

Request for Information

Further to our acknowledgement of 5 July 2013 we are now in a position to provide you with a response to your request for information dated 1 July 2013.

As you know we have dealt with your request in accordance with your ‘right to know’ under section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), which entitles you to be provided with a copy of any information ‘held’ by a public authority, unless an appropriate exemption applies.

Request

In your e-mail of 1 July 2013 you asked us to provide you with information relating to an agreement between the ICO and Cheshire East Council (CEC) regarding CEC not performing internal reviews of requests to it relating to the Lyme Green Report, and these being passed directly on to the ICO.

Information Not Held

I can confirm that the ICO does not hold any record or information relating to any such agreement, as referred to in your request. It is most likely that if CEC contacted the ICO regarding this situation, it would have been verbally to our helpline, to ask for advice.

In this type of situation, where a public authority has nobody who can undertake an internal review for whatever reason, it is likely that ICO helpline staff would advise that under FOIA, internal reviews are not obligatory and it is possible for it to waive its right to undertake one. It is also likely that the ICO would advise that, in such a situation, it would accept a complaint without an internal review having been undertaken.

Review Procedure

I hope that this provides you with the information you require. However, if you are dissatisfied with the response you have received and wish to request a review of our decision or make a complaint about how your request has been handled you should write to the Information Governance Department at the address below or e-mail informationgovernance@ico.gsi.gov.uk.

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40 working days of receipt by you of this response. Any such request received after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the Commissioner.

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right of appeal to this office in our capacity as the statutory complaint handler under the legislation. To make such an application, please write to the First Contact Team, at the address below or visit the ‘Complaints’ section of our website to make a Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

A copy of our review procedure is available here.

Yours sincerely

Richard Sisson
Lead Information Governance Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

This posting is added because Stockport Council is working in tandem with Cheshire East Council on a £300million project, and the goings on at Cheshire East vis a vis planning need careful observation.

Cheshire East Council with Councillor Michael Jones at the helm – riddles, problems, grey areas and matters not fully explained will keep on coming up.

Lyme Green and the infamous ultra expensive report. The deadline for is exposure passed. Shenanigans over that with knobs on! We will look in further postings at the distribution of the report/accessability restrictions.