Over 3,000 people have signed a petition against car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock in New Brighton but what happens next?

Fort Perch Rock car park 29th June 2015 Photo 1 of 3

Fort Perch Rock car park 29th June 2015 Photo 2 of 3

Fort Perch Rock car park 29th June 2015 Photo 3 of 3

Above are three photos of Fort Perch Rock car park in New Brighton taken on the 29th June 2015. Over the busier summer holidays this car park will be full.

Future Council Wirral logo

As part of the Future Council consultation last year Wirral Council consulted the public on £2.5 million of budget cuts. In the end only £2.4 million of cuts were agreed because of savings that resulted from the extended Biffa contract.

One of the budget options as part of the Future Council consultation was to introduce car parking charges at the Fort Perch Rock car park in New Brighton. Councillors were told that this would bring in an estimated £25,000 in 2015/16 and £10,000 in 2016/17. A public document (that wasn’t part of the documents shared with the public as part of the Future Council consultation) estimated that the cost of providing cash payment ticket machines would be £20,000 (see section 6.2 page 9).

Last year as part of that budget consultation, there was a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee on the 4th November 2014 where councillors discussed the budget option for charging for car parking at Fort Perch Rock car park.

You can watch that discussion in the Youtube video below which should start at the point about the Fort Perch Rock car park.

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The minutes of what was agreed at the public meeting of the 4th November 2014 are included in the agenda for the Cabinet meeting that decided on the budget options.

At that meeting Cllr Jerry Williams (Wirral Council’s Heritage Champion and a Labour councillor) tried to move a recommendation that the budget option of charging at Fort Perch Rock car park be removed from the budget options. However the solicitor advising the Committee said that it couldn’t be removed, so instead it was watered down to a recommendation to Cabinet that the budget option wasn’t adopted. The recommendation was seconded by Cllr Robert Gregson (also a Labour councillor representing New Brighton ward). This is what the recommendation stated:

“The Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee recommend to Cabinet that the budget option to introduce car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock Car Park, New Brighton is not adopted.”

Cllr Irene Williams (Labour), Cllr John Salter (Labour), Cllr Anita Leech (Labour), Cllr Matt Daniel (Labour), Cllr Robert Gregson (Labour), Cllr Jim Crabtree (Labour), Cllr Jerry Williams (Labour), Cllr Steve Williams (Conservative), Cllr John Hale (Conservative), Cllr Jerry Ellis (Conservative), Cllr Andrew Hodson (Conservative) and Cllr David Elderton (Conservative) voted in favour of the recommendation.

Two councillors voted against that recommendation (Cllr Chris Carubia (Lib Dem) and Cllr Mike Sullivan (Chair, Labour)).

On the 9th December 2014 Cabinet (which is ten Labour councillors including one for New Brighton Cllr Pat Hackett) met. They didn’t agree with the recommendation from the Policy and Performance Committee and instead voted to introduce car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock in New Brighton. The minutes of that meeting state “We also feel that it is appropriate to introduce a modest charge for parking at Fort Perch Rock in New Brighton up to 6 p.m.” .

This Cabinet budget proposal then formed the Cabinet’s proposal for Labour’s budget to the 2015/16 budget meeting of all councillors held on the 24th February 2015.

All the Labour councillors on the 24th February 2015 present at that meeting (including those who had three months earlier voted for a recommendation to Cabinet not to start charging for parking at Fort Perch Rock) voted for the Labour budget apart from Cllr Steve Foulkes (who was Mayor and Mayor’s traditionally abstain from votes on party political matters). You can see which way each councillor voted on the Labour’s budget here.

On December 22nd 2014 I wrote When Wirral Council introduces car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock, will 3 hours free parking end for a further 423 New Brighton spaces? which details how if car parking charges are brought in at Fort Perch Rock car park then under the terms of the lease that Wirral Council has for the Marine Point development at New Brighton, that charges could be introduced at two free car parks (the supermarket car park and the health & fitness car park).

Earlier this year Wirral Council had a formal consultation on introducing car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock car park. You can see the public notice (which has more detail as to how much they could charge for parking) for that consultation below. That consultation ended on the 3rd July 2015.

There is a large petition against introducing charging for car parking at Fort Perch Rock car park in New Brighton which at the time of writing has 3,395 signatures.

So what happens next? In September there will be a public meeting of the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel to consider objections people have made to introducing car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock car park.

The Chair of the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel is Cllr Steve Williams (Conservative). Cllr Mike Sullivan (Labour) and Cllr Dave Mitchell (Lib Dem) are the rest of the panel. This panel meets during the day and if any of the three councillors can’t make it to the meeting they can send a deputy in their place.

When the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel meets in September, it will make a recommendation on whether to introduce car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock car park to the Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee. The Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee meet in public on the 15th September 2015 starting at 6.00pm in Committee Room 1 at Wallasey Town Hall. The Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee can alter any recommendation they receive from the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel.

The Regeneration and Environment Policy and Performance Committee then make a recommendation to the Cabinet Member for Highways and Transportation Cllr Stuart Whittingham who then makes a formal decision on the matter which is published on Wirral Council’s website.

Such a large petition also grants the petition organiser for five minutes to explain their petition at a meeting of all councillors, which then triggers a debate of a maximum of fifteen minutes. However as the next meeting of Council is on the 12th October 2015 (probably after all this will be decided) this is a moot point.

Finally, what’s known now, but wasn’t known last year, is that Wirral Council had an underspend last year of £510,000 last year (which is money that is carried over to this year).

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What are the changes next year to the public's right to inspect documents of public bodies during the audit?

What are the changes next year to the public’s right to inspect documents of public bodies during the audit?

Wirral Council lease Neptune Wirral Limited Neptune Developments Limited Neptune Projects Limited 20th June 2011 for New Brighton Phase II draft car parking management plan page 2 of 2

Above is one of the documents I requested under the 2013/14 audit last year, which is a page of a lease that Wirral Council have with Neptune that states that if Wirral Council introduce car parking in the Fort Perch Rock car park, then charges can be introduced in the free car parks part of the Marine Point development.

Each year for the past few years I have exercised a right you get to exercise only for three weeks each year, which is a right under section 15 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 to inspect documents relating to the previous financial year (2014/15) during the audit.

This has in years gone past has been the only way to see such financial information and to give one example of a story that resulted in many interesting stories on this blog (ranging from councillor’s expenses and taxis to an unsigned contract for a million pounds worth of work).

This year I have exercised my s.15 right not just with Wirral Council, but with Liverpool City Council, Merseytravel, the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority and the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority.

A couple of weeks before the three-week period when the public can inspect these documents each of these bodies has to publish a public notice in a newspaper that circulates in the area covered by that body. The regulations also require each body to publish this notice on their website. Wirral Council’s notice can be found on their website here.

To save myself trekking off to Birkenhead Central library and spending an afternoon going through back issues of the local newspapers trying to find the public notices, I found this website that has a searchable database of all public notices published by the Trinity Mirror group.

All of the notices (apart from the Merseytravel one) had a name of someone at that public body who I wrote to (whether by letter or by email). In the case of Merseytravel I wrote to the Chief Executive, who passed my request on to the person at Merseytravel dealing with it.

So far the responses have been as follows:

Merseytravel – dates of Monday 27th July 2015/Tuesday 28th July 2015 agreed to come in and inspect the documents. They have a “paperless office”, but will be printing off copies of the invoices/contracts I requested so their legal department can redact parts of them.

Merseyside Waste and Recycling Authority – dates of Friday 24th July and Wednesday 29th July 2015 have been agreed to come in and inspect documents.

Liverpool City Council – email sent yesterday, no reply received yet

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority – email sent and acknowledged on the 15th July 2015, no further reply received since

Wirral Council – email sent with request for contracts & councillor expenses on 19th July 2015, reply received yesterday, list of invoices sent this morning, no reply received yet or date/s arranged

Next year, any right of access to invoices and contracts will be under the new section 26 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014.

The main differences will be next year that a new ground of refusing a request on grounds of “commercial confidentiality” has been added in to the legislation unless there is an “overriding public interest in favour of its disclosure”.

This puts on a statutory footing the Veolia case, see [2010] EWCA Civ 1214 if you’re curious about what I mean.

The new section 26 also means that determinations about what is “personal information” on documents (therefore not open to inspection) will in future be made by the public body themselves and not the situation at present of the public body having to get agreement from their external auditor to this. It does make it crystal clear that the names of sole traders on invoices is not covered by the definition of “personal information” and defines “personal information” as “identifies a particular individual or enables a particular individual to be identified”. The restriction on information about the public body’s staff remains in section 26 next year.

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Should all Liverpool City Council councillors have had a vote on a £110,000 "golden goodbye" for the former Director of Public Health?

Should all Liverpool City Council councillors have had a vote on a £110,000 “golden goodbye” for the former Director of Public Health?

Mayor Joe Anderson responds on the issue of green spaces in Liverpool 8th April 2015 — Mayor Joe Anderson (Chair of the Appointments Panel), Liverpool City Council 8th April 2015

For those with long memories going back to 2012, you will remember a number of Wirral Council’s chief officers were suspended, but left Wirral Council with large payouts. One example (of many) was Bill Norman (the former Monitoring Officer/Head of Law, HR and Asset Management) leaving at a cost of £151,416.

Those with even longer memories will remember that two senior managers in Wirral Council’s Social Services department left the employment of Wirral Council the day before the Anna Klonowski Associates report was published at a cost of £109,496.45 for the Head of Support Services (Finance Department) and Assistant Director, Head of Wellbeing (Department of Adult Social Services) at a cost of £111,042.95 .

There was a certain degree of public anger that in the case of these last two councillors were not directly involved in the decision. Outrage at the amount involved led to a change to Wirral Council’s constitution, so councillors did decide whether to agree to a compromise contract in Bill Norman’s case. This also led to changes at the national level.

The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP wrote to all leaders of local councils in England in February 2013, you can read read his letter here which contained the following on what should happen with regards to large severance payments.

Full Council should also be given the opportunity to vote on severance payments over £100,000. Many believe that pay-offs to senior local government staff are excessive and too frequent. The Localism Act brings out into the open the approach taken to severance across the sector. There is a clear case for going further and ensuring that, as well as approving their authority’s policy on severance, Members are able to consider each time it is proposed to spend local taxpayers’ money on a large pay-off.
This follows on from my announcement in November 2012 where I said that I intend to remove the costly and bureaucratic requirement for a designated independent person to investigate allegations of misconduct by senior officers from the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) Regulations 2001. I am currently consulting with the Local Government Association and others on the draft regulations to give effect to these changes.

Accompanying Eric Pickles’ letter was guidance, which section 40 of the Localism Act 2011 stated that “A relevant authority in England must, in performing its functions under section 38 or 39, have regard to any guidance issued or approved by the Secretary of State.” Sections 38 and 39 of the Localism Act 2011 relate to pay policy statements.

At Liverpool City Council’s Budget meeting of the 5th March 2014, the pay policy for 2014/15 was agreed. The bit about large severance payments is phrased in an interesting way:

6.6(ii) Guidance issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government on severance payment puts forward a case for offering full Council the opportunity to vote on severance packages above a certain threshold and that is placed at £100k. Full Council delegates this function to the Council’s Appointments Panel. Council does so, on the basis that such delegation facilitates compliance with Data Protection legislation in respect of the entitlement to privacy of the individual concerned without prejudicing transparency as that is achieved by the City Council ensuring compliance with Access to Information Rules, Legislation and all accounting requirements placed upon the Authority.

In other words instead of following the guidance and giving all councillors a vote at Liverpool City Council on severance payments over £100,000 and the requirement in section 40 of the Localism Act 2011 to have regard to the guidance when drawing up their pay policy statement, Liverpool City Council decided just to do things differently.

Buried on page 82 of Liverpool City Council’s statement of accounts for 2014/15 it shows a payment of £110,000 was made for “compensation for loss of employment” to Liverpool City Council’s Director of Public Health who left on the 6th April 2014.

So did the Appointments Panel at Liverpool City Council decide on this? The meeting of the Appointments Panel of Monday 24th February 2014 (the one directly before to the Director of Public Health leaving in April 2014) curiously has no agenda and no minutes published on Liverpool City Council’s website.

The supplementary guidance issued in 2013 had this to state on the subject of large severance payments.

Severance payments

11. There has been a great deal of public scrutiny of the level of severance payments awarded to senior local government staff and rightly so. Authorities should ensure that they manage their workforces in a way that best delivers best value for money for local taxpayers and sets the right example on restraint. This includes any payments offered to staff leaving the authority.

12. Authorities are already required to publish their policies on severance for chief officers ⁵ and their policy on discretionary compensation for relevant staff in the event of redundancy. ⁶ In addition, other regulations provide for disclosure of remuneration of senior employees including details of severance payments within authorities’ annual statement of accounts. ⁷

13. Taken together, these measures enable greater scrutiny of the money spent by authorities on severance. However, given continuing public concern about the level and frequency of such payments, there is a case for going further to ensure that decisions to spend local taxpayers’ money on large pay-offs are subject to appropriate levels of accountability. Authorities should, therefore, offer full council (or a meeting of members in the case of fire authorities) the opportunity to vote before large severance packages beyond a particular threshold are approved for staff leaving the organisation. As with salaries on appointment, the Secretary of State considers that £100,000 is the right level for that threshold to be set.

14. In presenting information to full council, authorities should set out clearly the components of relevant severance packages. These components may include salary paid in lieu, redundancy compensation, pension entitlements, holiday pay and any bonuses, fees or allowances paid.

15. This follows on from the Secretary of State’s announcement ⁸ that he intends to remove the costly and bureaucratic requirement for a designated independent person to investigate allegations of misconduct by senior officers from the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) Regulations 2001. We are currently consulting with the Local Government Association and others on the draft regulations to give effect to these changes.

So according to the guidance, should all of Liverpool City Council councillors had a vote on the £110,000 payment to the former Director of Public Health along with a published breakdown as to how this £110,000 figure was arrived at?

Why is the agenda (and minutes if it met) of the public meeting of Liverpool City Council’s Appointments Panel immediately prior the Director of Public Health not available?

Why state in the pay policy about “respect of the entitlement to privacy of the individual concerned” when there is legislation requiring such payments to senior officers to be included in the statement of accounts anyway (see Regulation 7(3)(iv) of the Accounts and Audit (England) Regulations 2011)?

Doesn’t this all seem to show that when the Coalition government tried to improve transparency and accountability in this area that Liverpool City Council just blatantly decide to carry on what it was doing before regardless of what the new guidance stated?

Does anyone know if following consultation with the Local Government Association and others whether regulations about this area came into force (if so what are they called) or was guidance considered sufficient?

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2 replies later, why is there still a wall of silence about why a Wirral Council employee took their employer to an Employment Tribunal?

About two months ago I noticed a 3 day Employment Tribunal case was listed involving a Wirral Council employee (or possibly former employee) to be heard at Vernon Street in Liverpool (see picture below).

Liverpool Civil and Family Court Vernon Street, Liverpool

Had it gone ahead on the original dates I would have been able to attend, however it was rescheduled to the next week and unfortunately on those days I was unable to attend.

So I requested a copy by post of the judgement from:

Judgment Register
Triton House
St Andrew’s Street (N)
Bury St Edmunds
IP33 1TR

A few days later I received this reply.

Her Majesty's Court and Tribunal Service envelope 1 — Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunal Service envelope 1

When I opened the envelope it contained this compliments slip:

HM Courts and Tribunal Service reply 1 re copy of Employment Tribunal judgement

The handwriting above reads “UNFORTUNATELY WE DO NOT HAVE THE JUDGEMENT (2403874/2014) AT THE PRESENT TIME. I WOULD SUGGEST TRYING AGAIN IN 3 OR 4 WEEKS.

AS FOR COPIES OF OTHER JUDGEMENTS, IT IS £10 FOR THE FIRST AND £5 FOR ANY EXTRAS.

WE HAVE RETURNED YOUR CHEQUE.”

OK, fair enough I thought, a bit like the county court, you can be there in person at the public hearing and hear the judge dictate his or her judgement, but it can take a few weeks before it’s typed up and ready as a judgement that’s sent out in the post to the parties involved.

So four weeks later I wrote again.

Once again I received a reply (see the envelope below).

Her Majesty's Court and Tribunal Service envelope 2 — Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunal Service envelope 2

Oh good I thought, I’ll finally get to read what this interesting case is finally about! However no, this was the reply I got instead!

HMCTS letter re copy of Employment Tribunal judgement dated 15th July 2015

This formal letter states (I’ve left out the logo, address, telephone number, email address and website address which you can read above):

Your ref:
Date: 15 July

Dear Sir/Madam,

Unfortunately, we still do not have a copy of the judgement, Mrs M Foulston v Wirral Borough Council – 2403874/2014 – If you are positive this employment tribunal has concluded, all I can suggest is once again trying again in a few weeks or if you know the court where the tribunal was held, you could try contacting them directly.

I have enclosed your returned check.

Apologies and thanks

From 01 April 2011, the Employment Tribunals became part of the new HM Courts and Tribunal Service, administered by the Ministry of Justice. Future requests for copy Employment Tribunal judgements should be accompanied by a cheque or Postal Order made payable to HM Courts and Tribunal Service or HMCTS.

Yours faithfully,

(signature)

Jodie Rose

So, I double checked the name and case reference number. They’re both correct. It was originally scheduled to be on the 20th, 21st and 22nd May 2015.

However this got rescheduled to the 27th, 28th and 29th May 2015 instead where it’s listed with the same case number.

It’s not listed the week after (so it didn’t get rescheduled again), however I didn’t check the daily list for either the 27th, 28th or 29th May.

So can anyone please shed some light as to what happened and/or answer the below questions?

Did the hearing go ahead, but due to its complexity the judgement isn’t available yet from the Judgements Register?

Could a deal have been done at the last moment which meant it didn’t go to a hearing (which explains the problems over requesting a copy of the judgement?

Finally, there’s a right to get a copy of the judgement, but if an Employment Tribunal case is filed but doesn’t go to a hearing, is there any right to a copy of the papers submitted similar to Civil Procedure Rule 5.4C for civil cases?

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Why after 2 years, 3 months and 19 days have Wirral Council U-turned on refusing a FOI request for minutes of a public meeting that they claimed was vexatious?

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Why after 2 years, 3 months and 19 days have Wirral Council U-turned on refusing a FOI request for minutes of a public meeting that they claimed was vexatious?

ICO Information Commissioner’s Office logo

Wirral Council have over the years discussed the issue of Freedom of Information at many public meetings. I wanted to write about my experience of one request where it took 2 years and 3 and a half months for Wirral Council to release some of the information I requested.

Way back on the 29th March 2013 I made a FOI request to Wirral Council for minutes of various panels, statutory committees, advisory committees and working parties that councillors are on.

I asked merely for the minutes of the meeting held before making the request. One of these (numbered 5 on my list) was the minutes of the Standing Advisory Committee on Religious Education (SACRE).

This is what happened next.

20 working days went past and Wirral Council didn’t respond to the request, so on the 29th April 2013 I requested an internal review of Wirral Council’s lack of response.

On the 30th April 2013 Wirral Council replied refusing the request based on section 12 and claimed it would take longer than the 18.5 hours allowed to respond to the request.

I clarified what appeared to be a misunderstanding in the way I had phrased the original request and requested an internal review of this decision disputing that it would take over the 18.5 hour limit.

The internal review came back on the 30th July 2013, it changed the decision from refusing this part of the request on cost grounds (section 12) to refusing it on section 14 grounds (vexatious or repeated requests).

On the 14th August 2013 I appealed this decision to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).

On the 19th June 2014 Wirral Council amended its response. It still refused this part of the request but now decided to amend its reason for withholding the information. It was no longer withheld relying on section 14 (vexatious or repeated requests) but back to section 12 (exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit). The parts of the request that could be described as environmental information were refused using Regulation 12(4)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 as being “manifestly unreasonable”. This is the EIR equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act’s vexatious exemption.

On the 8th September 2014 the Information Commissioner’s Office issued a decision notice for this request (FS50509081).

The 9 page decision notice said that Wirral Council had breached section 10(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and regulation 5(2) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 by not responding to this request within the first 20 working days of making it.

In addition to this it had breached s.16(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and regulation 9(1) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 which require Wirral Council to provide advice and assistance to those making requests.

Finally the decision notice required Wirral Council to issue a fresh response to this request within 35 calendar days of the 8th September 2014 that did not rely upon the exemption in section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (cost grounds) or Regulation 12(4)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (that the environmental part of the request was “manifestly unreasonable”.

On the 4th November 2014 Wirral Council released redacted minutes of the Special Advisory Committee on Religious Education’s meeting of the 7th February 2013. Apart from the councillors on the committee anybody else on the committee had their name replaced by “name redacted”.

The minutes now looked like this:

Name redacted was proposed by Councillor Clements and seconded by Name redacted. By a unanimous show of hands Name redacted was duly elected to the post of Vice Chair.

Name redacted nominated Name redacted for the post of Vice Chair and this was seconded by Name redacted. By a unanimous show of hands Name redacted was duly elected to the post of Vice Chair.

Their response stated why the names had been removed, relying on a section 40 exemption for personal information.

I consider that part of the requested information is exempt information under Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, in that the Complainant is asking for information which is personal data, in respect of which he is not the data subject. I consider that the disclosure of the requested information would contravene the second data protection principle that personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes. Certain individuals named in the Minutes dated 7 February 2013 (not including Councillors) would have a legitimate expectation that their personal data would not be further processed in a manner incompatible with the specified and lawful purposes of the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education. I consider that the Complainant’s request for information can be met by giving him a redacted copy of the minutes dated 7 February 2013, which redacts the names of certain individuals and these are attached.

On the 12th November 2014 I requested an internal review of this (also challenging other information they had withheld). This is what I stated about this part of the request:

“5. Standing Advisory Committee on Religious Education (SACRE)

This relates to the minutes of the meeting held on 7th February 2013.

By statute this meeting meets in public. Another part of statute allows me to request the names and personal addresses of those on the committee. Other local authorities routinely publish the minutes of these SACRE public meetings. They do not redact the information you have.

My internal review on the redactions is then on the basis that:

a) the minutes relate to a meeting held in public
b) because of the above there is no legitimate expectation of privacy

You state “would have a legitimate expectation that their personal data would not be further processed in a manner incompatible with the specified and lawful purposes of the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education.”

I will give more detail as to the lawful purposes of the SACRE referred to in relation to meeting minutes.

Regulation 7 of The Religious Education (Meetings of Local Conferences and Councils) Regulations 1994

“7. (1) After a meeting the following documents shall be available for inspection by members of the public at the offices of the authority until the expiration of six years beginning with the date of the meeting, namely,—

(a) a copy of the agenda for the meeting;
(b) a copy of so much of any report for the meeting as relates to any item during which the meeting was open to members of the public; and
(c) a copy of so much of the minutes of the meeting as relates to any such item.”

The minutes of the meeting have been held in the last 6 years. Therefore I have an existing right of inspection to a copy of the minutes in unredacted form. Therefore the names of people in the minutes cannot have the private and personal nature that you ascribe to this information.

Secondly in addition to the names, the Group (ranging from A to C) of the individuals present has also been removed. Unless there’s only one representative from that group, merely the group letter
cannot be used to identify an individual.

Therefore I am asking for an internal review based of the information that has been withheld not being provided.”

No response was received in response to the internal review request, so I complained to ICO again.

On the 30th April 2015 (nearly 6 months after the internal review request that are supposed to take a maximum of 40 days) Wirral Council responded.

They stated it would take 32 hours to do a proper internal review, so just classed the request for an internal review as “vexatious” (see section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000).

Understandably I complained to ICO again.

Today (over 8 months since the last internal review request that they claimed was “vexatious”) Wirral Council got back in touch.

They now want to “amend their response”. Apparently the bit about the SACRE meeting minutes was not vexatious. They no longer seek to rely on the exemption contained in section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The minutes of the SACRE meeting of the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education held on the 7th February 2013 were provided including names.

So for a request made on the 29th March 2013, the information was finally given out on the 17th July 2015 whereas FOI requests are required to be answered within 20 working days.

However, this change of heart of Wirral Council wasn’t just about the part of the request for a meeting of the Special Advisory Council on Religious Education. Their response to the part of the request for minutes of a meeting of the Hilbre Island Nature Reserve Management Committee was modified as follows:

Environmental Information Regulations 2004

Part 21

Hilbre Island Nature Reserve Management Committee

I enclose an extract from an email provided to the Information Management Team which was as follows:-

“There are no minutes from 2013 the Hilbre Island Nature Reserve Management Committee as the present Committee was formed in March 2014.”

This is the reason that the council responded to your original request that it did not hold any information

I asked a councillor on Twitter about whether the Hilbre Island Nature Reserve Management Committee existed prior to 2014.

Two councillors were kind enough to reply to my question. Cllr Chris Carubia stated “From the discussions today I know it has been in existence for over 5 years at least”.

Cllr Pat Williams replied, “Yes I was a proud member for a number of years.”

I include copies of the tweets below.

https://twitter.com/cllrccarubia/status/622150465715859456

@level80 @cllrccarubia Yes, I was a proud member for a number of years.

— Patricia Williams (@mrspatwilliams) July 17, 2015

Personally I believe the two Lib Dem councillors (one of whom was on the Hilbre Island Nature Reserve Management Committee) rather than Wirral Council’s officially stated position and I think I should draw to the attention of the Information Commissioner’s Office how their view differs from what Wirral Council states.

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Over 3,000 people have signed a petition against car parking charges at Fort Perch Rock in New Brighton but what happens next?

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What are the changes next year to the public’s right to inspect documents of public bodies during the audit?

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Should all Liverpool City Council councillors have had a vote on a £110,000 “golden goodbye” for the former Director of Public Health?

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2 replies later, why is there still a wall of silence about why a Wirral Council employee took their employer to an Employment Tribunal?

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Why after 2 years, 3 months and 19 days have Wirral Council U-turned on refusing a FOI request for minutes of a public meeting that they claimed was vexatious?

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