In response to a FOI request Wirral Council pulls a rabbit out of a hat and the invoice mysteriously disappears!

In response to a FOI request Wirral Council pulls a rabbit out of a hat and the invoice mysteriously disappears!                                                                   Above is a picture of a magician with the famous white rabbit out of a magician’s hat trick. First the hat is empty, then the magician makes the white rabbit appear out of nowhere. … Continue reading “In response to a FOI request Wirral Council pulls a rabbit out of a hat and the invoice mysteriously disappears!”

In response to a FOI request Wirral Council pulls a rabbit out of a hat and the invoice mysteriously disappears!

                                                                 

John Booth with white rabbit
John Booth with white rabbit

Above is a picture of a magician with the famous white rabbit out of a magician’s hat trick. First the hat is empty, then the magician makes the white rabbit appear out of nowhere.

Wirral Council seem to be wanting to pull a similar magic trick when it comes to this FOI request. Let’s just recap what Wirral Council have stated so far.

On the 21st April 2015 Wirral Council refused this FOI request for the fees notes (note plural) on the basis of legal professional privilege (you can read the full text of that refusal here).

On the 11th June 2015 Wirral Council at internal review refused this FOI request for the fees notes (note plural) on the basis of commercial interests (you can read the full text of that refusal here). At internal review Wirral Council stated "The original responder considered the contents of the fees notes".

On the 27th October the Information Commissioner’s Office issued decision notice FS50585536 which required Wirral Council to produce the fees notes within 35 days.

On the 24th November Wirral Council produced one of the two which you can read about in Why did Wirral Council spend £48,384 on a London-based barrister in benefits battle with landlord?

However yesterday Wirral Council decided to show us all a magic trick.

The fee note for the £2,700 invoice, which they have been claiming for the past nearly nine months has been carefully considered by its officers when refusing this request (twice) has conveniently and somewhat mysteriously vanished.

Yes like the reverse trick of the white rabbit appearing out of nowhere and just when it would be contempt of court not to produce it, it vanishes!

Of course the observant among you will have long witnessed the "magic and miracles" that goes on at Wirral Council by its employees.

ED: 1/12/15 9:49 Just for clarity, here is the invoice this refers to which quite clearly states "See fee note attached for description of work".

I will finish with this clip of Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes, Prime Minister. Wirral Council’s responses to FOI requests will be discussed by councillors on Thursday evening, in response to this Lib Dem motion.

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ICO rule that Wirral Council’s refusal of FOI request based on “commercial interests” is incorrect (FS50585536)

ICO rule that Wirral Council’s refusal of FOI request based on "commercial interests" is incorrect (FS50585536)

ICO rule that Wirral Council’s refusal of FOI request based on "commercial interests" is incorrect (FS50585536)

                                                                 

ICO Information Commissioner's Office logo
ICO Information Commissioner’s Office logo

The Information Commissioner’s Office have issued another decision notice in favour of this blog. You can read it for yourself as I’ve uploaded it to the blog decision notice FS50585536 (although eventually it’ll be published on ICO’s website).

It’s five pages, so I’ll summarise what it states and go into the history.

As a local government elector during the 2013/14 audit I requested various invoices for legal work which I have a legal right to inspect and receive free copies of as a local government elector on the Wirral.

Sadly the invoices that this decision notice refer to were only the first page of a multi-page invoice. I made a FOI request for the rest of the invoices. One was for £48,384 and the other for £2,700 (both from Weightmans).

Wirral Council first refused the request on a quite baseless and ludicrous application of stating that they were covered by legal professional privilege.

Whoever dealt with it at internal review agreed with me that this was incorrect.

However then Wirral Council refused the request giving the reason of "Commercial interests".

The Information Commissioner’s Office was not convinced by Wirral Council’s arguments and has rejected Wirral’s application of withholding the information based on commercial interests.

I am pleased the decision notice doesn’t give Wirral Council the option to "pick another reason" to withhold the information. There’s one request I have to Wirral Council now on its third decision notice because Wirral Council has exploited that loophole in the past.

So Wirral Council have (well had from the date of the decision notice which was 2 days ago) 35 days to supply the information or 28 days to appeal the decision.

Let’s hope Wirral Council stop playing games over freedom of information and do the right thing?

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