What was the decision in First-tier Tribunal case EA/2016/0054?
What was the decision in First-tier Tribunal case EA/2016/0054?
Liverpool Civil & Family Court, Vernon Street, Liverpool, L2 2BX (the venue for First-Tier Tribunal case EA/2016/0054)
I’ll declare at the start I was the Appellant in this First-tier Tribunal case.
As the costs issue has yet to be decided (that is it is still sub judice), unfortunately I’m turning off comments on this blog post to prevent any comments about an issue that is still sub judice.
Added 28/9/2016 The original 2nd Respondent’s name read incorrectly Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (not Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority). The GRC have been in touch with an amended version and it is the corrected version that is below rather than the original.
In the First – Tier Tribunal (information Rights)
Appeal No. EA/2016/0054
BETWEEN
John Michael Brace
Appellant
and
The Information Commissioner
First Respondent
and
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority
Second Respondent
Consent Order
By consent of all parties, the requested information having been provided to the Appellant by the Second Respondent, this appeal is withdrawn.
The Second Respondent’s application for costs pursuant to Rule 10(2) of the 2009 Rules is adjourned for a date and a procedure to be fixed.
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority end 15 month information request over Greasby and Saughall Massie fire stations by supplying the information, but ask First-tier Tribunal for costs award in their favour against Mr Brace
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority end 15 month information request over Greasby and Saughall Massie fire stations by supplying the information, but ask First-tier Tribunal for costs award in their favour against Mr Brace
Liverpool Civil & Family Court, Vernon Street, Liverpool
This is a report of a hearing held today of the First-tier Tribunal held in Tribunal Room 3, 3rd Floor (Tribunals Service), Liverpool Civil and Family Court, 35 Vernon Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, L2 2BX
At the hearing I was the Appellant and Janet Henshaw represented Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority. ICO did not attend. The case number was EA/2016/0054.
The decision at the hearing was to end the matter by consent order.
The Tribunal consisted of First-tier Tribunal Judge Mr. David Farrer QC, First-tier Tribunal Member Mr. Michael Hake and First-tier Tribunal Member Dr. Malcolm Clarke.
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority explained that they had not provided the information covered by decision notice FER0592270, because they had changed it during the course of the EIR request to remove both “Not for publication” and the reason or reasons why under the Local Government Act 1972 it had initially been classed by them as exempt information (although this is a position they reversed during the course of the appeal).
Despite the Appellant informing them by letter in response to what they had sent him on Monday 19th September 2016 (which are the reports below), are not the version he asked for, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority saw it unreasonable to have a hearing today on the withheld information.
During the course of the hearing MFRA supplied extra information to the Appellant Mr. Brace both in written form and verbally.
MFRA asked the Tribunal to make a costs award against Mr Brace, the Appellant.
The Appellant was asked to explain his point of view. He explained that the law stated information that should’ve been in what was supplied, therefore he knew it was the wrong version and he had informed MFRA, the Tribunal and ICO of this by letter.
He had not yet received a response to this letter from MFRA.
MFRA argued that the hearing was pointless, because from their perspective even if the information supplied was two A4 pages shorter than the case management note had required them to supply, in their view, the extra pages contained no information relating to the request in it and referred them to Mr Brace’s letter describing the extra pages.
MFRA were asked during the course of the hearing to supply the version in existence at the time of request to the Appellant Mr Brace.
Janet Henshaw of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority explained that she hadn’t brought it with her to the hearing.
Due to the explanation provided by MFRA as to the withheld pages of information, the Appellant agreed to end the matter by consent order.
Janet Henshaw of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority argued that the Appellant was being unreasonable in bringing the proceedings to a hearing.
The Appellant was given a chance to make representations.
The Tribunal did not agree to make an award of costs at the hearing, but directed Janet Henshaw of MFRA to make a formal application for costs and to serve it on the Appellant and Tribunal by a specified date.
The the Appellant would have a chance to make representations and as he is an individual, supply the Tribunal (and MFRA) with details of financial means (which would have to be considered) when the Tribunal makes a decision.
The First-Tier Tribunal Judge explained that the Tribunal’s rules on costs were different to that of the court.
One of those present also seemed upset at the trees that had been cut down to produce the bundle and the First-Tier Tribunal Judge referred to the cost to the public purse.
Any decision by the Tribunal on costs can be appealed to the County Court.
The information in the two reports relates to MFRA plans for a fire station at Greasby, then Saughall Massie.
Both reports (which were not made public during the two twelve week consultations) show indicative values for selling Upton Fire Station (£350,000) and selling West Kirby fire station (£200,000).
The land value assigned for the abandoned Greasby plans is £300,000 and the notional value assigned for the land at Saughall Massie is £300,000.
The Appellant awaits MFRA’s costs application with interest as at least one of the questions directed towards Chief Fire Officer Dan Stephens (pictured below) during one of the two consultation was why this information wasn’t in the public domain.
Dan Stephens (Chief Fire Officer) answers questions at a public consultation meeting in Saughall Massie to discuss proposals for a new fire station (20th April 2015)
The First-tier Tribunal Judge stated during the hearing that the reasons given in ICO’s decision notice no longer applied for withholding the information.
MFRA (in line with councillors stating that people should be charged for FOI or EIR requests) despite agreeing to end this by consent order feel that is unfair to pay MFRA’s costs in providing the information, even though the First-Tier Tribunal Judge told them that the reasons for withholding the information in the decision notice didn’t apply.
Janet Henshaw was the person that also refused the information at the internal review stage as she is a senior manager employed by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service.
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What do a car crash, road safety, A-boards, Wirral Council and the Merseyside OPCC have in common?
What do a car crash, road safety, A-boards, Wirral Council and the Merseyside OPCC have in common?
Councillor Michael Sullivan (Chair, Wirral Council’s Business and Overview Scrutiny Committee) at a public meeting held on the 13th September 2016. His microphone is now… on!
Yesterday evening’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Business and Overview Scrutiny Committee was for once quite literally car crash TV.
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Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 14th September 2016 (Agenda item 4 Road Safety – Reducing Pedestrian Casualties starts at 2m:21s) Part 1 of 5
Cllr Warren Ward reminded those present at the start of his declaration of interest by saying,
“Chair, I’ve got a declaration of interest.
In the report it mentions a quote from the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner.
In 2014, I was employed as a private secretary to errm the Police and Crime Commissioner Panel.”
I am of course welcome that Cllr Warren Ward brought this up, as Wirral’s criminal justice system caught up with Merseyside’s former Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner on the subject of road safety (although the embarrassing incident below wasn’t mentioned at last night’s meeting). At the time of the offence she was Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner.
Cllr Ann O’Byrne (who for the purposes of clarity and avoidance of doubt is a completely different councillor to the current Merseyside Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner Cllr Sue Murphy) according to a report in the Liverpool Echo pled guilty at Wirral Magistrates’ Court to two driving offences which were
driving “without due care and attention”
and
failing to stop after a road accident
after crashing into an orange BMW Mini. She pled guilty, was fined and had to pay prosecution costs of £565.
Of course there will be many regular readers who will see parallels between this behaviour and that of some politicians.
In the past some councillors have been accused of failing to stop going on after political accidents (such as the library closure programme only halted by a government ordered public inquiry), of generally being politicians behaving “without due care and attention” and also in the process of being more interested in scoring petty party political points and damaging the peoples’ trust in democratic systems in the process.
But then I shouldn’t be too critical as there are plenty of good politicians too that unfortunately get tarred by the same brush by association!
Certainly there is a lot of car crash TV I have filmed at public meetings over the years!
Moving swiftly back to the subject of the current Police and Crime Commissioner Jane Kennedy. She was asking questions on Monday afternoon about the effect on jobs of a joint Merseyside Police and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service project (involving consultants Deloittes are doing) at an eleven minute public meeting of the Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (see video of the meeting below). You can read the agenda and reports to do with that on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority’s website.
As this is a committee of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, I had better declare an interest as an Appellant in a First-tier Tribunal case in which Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority are Second Respondent (case reference EA⁄2016⁄0054).
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Police and Fire Collaboration Committee (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) Monday 12th September 2016
On the subject of legal action, at the meeting of last night’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee, the subject of A-boards and pedestrian safety was raised with respect to a display outside a fruit and vegetable shop in Moreton which was previously covered by this blog in 2012 (including a photo of the shop display in question).
David Rees (a road safety manager at Wirral Council) made it clear at the meeting that Wirral Council hadn’t received any legal claims for compensation from pedestrians arising from A-boards on the footway.
Conservative councillor Gerry Ellis stated that the person who had raised the issue with Wirral Council about the A-board outside a Moreton shop had been threatened with legal action by Wirral Council and asked a senior manager at Wirral Council (the Head of Environment and Regulation Mark Smith) to explain why.
However the Labour Chair of the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee Councillor Michael Sullivan intervened before Mark Smith had a chance to answer. I will also point out that from my recollection at least one Labour councillor expressed the view at the meeting that Wirral Council employees should not be criticised by Wirral Council councillors.
The Chair decided unilaterally that in his view the report was purely about pedestrian casualties and that as he knew of no recorded accidents known to Wirral Council involving A-boards, Cllr Sullivan told Cllr Ellis that Wirral Council’s Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee wasn’t the forum for discussing such matters and ended any debate on the matter.
Finally, the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner have been in touch with me.
During the 30 working day inspection period this year (which finished mid-August 2016) I requested some invoices. However I challenged whether some of the blacked out bits were done properly in accordance with the legislation. Technically not providing the information inside the 30 working day inspection period is unlawful (although it’s a civil law matter).
So I challenged it and around a month later got back three invoices from the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside with less redaction.
Can the citizens of Merseyside expect the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside to understand the law? Would that be expecting too much considering these invoices are to their “legal services department”? Or was this a genuine mistake? Or am I too robust in press scrutiny of the local public sector?
1) An invoice from Drystone Chambers (based in London) for the services of Mr Gregory Perrins (a barrister) at a Police Appeals Tribunal held on the 4th December 2015 for £1,632.
2) An invoice from Mishcon de Reya (a London-based firm of solicitors) was for £6,000 for supply of legal services in the matter “Royal Mail – VAT Invoices for Postage Services”)
3) An invoice from Slater and Gordon UK LLP for £2,221.92 (a Manchester based firm of solicitors) for professional charges involving criminal defence and disbursements.
EXCLUSIVE: Wirral Council planning officer decides greenbelt site for Saughall Massie Fire Station is not “environmentally sensitive”
EXCLUSIVE: Wirral Council planning officer decides greenbelt site for Saughall Massie Fire Station is not “environmentally sensitive”
Dan Stephens (Chief Fire Officer) answers questions at a public consultation meeting in Saughall Massie to discuss proposals for a new fire station
The author of this piece is the Appellant in a First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) case where Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority is the Second Respondent.
The first decision on the Saughall Massie Fire Station planning application has been made by Wirral Council in relation to the screening opinion.
In a decision letter dated 17th August 2016, a Wirral Council planning officer has decided that despite the site bordering a conservation area and also (although it’s not mentioned in the decision letter) the fact the plans include fuel storage, that an Environmental Impact Assessment is not required as the site is not considered “environmentally sensitive”.
“6 Chemical industry (unless included in Schedule 1)
(c) Storage facilities for petroleum, petrochemical and chemical products.
(i) The area of any new building or structure exceeds 0.05 hectare; or
(ii) more than 200 tonnes of petroleum, petrochemical or chemical products is to be stored at any one time.”
Why does this invoice for the Holiday Inn, York come to more than the £1,155.19 Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service paid for it in January 2016?
Why does this invoice for the Holiday Inn, York come to more than the £1,155.19 Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service paid for it in January 2016?
Declaration of interest: The author of this piece is the Appellant in a First-Tier Tribunal case in which Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority is the Second Respondent (EA/2016/0054).
Below is an invoice unearthed during my citizen’s audit of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service. It appears to be for three not specified people in “Team Merseyside” at the Holiday Inn in York from the 27th December 2015 to the 1st January 2016.
It’s the first page of a multi page invoice from the Holiday Inn York. Sadly Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority failed to provide the rest of the invoice as requested within the 30 working day deadline.
The payment is listed as £1,155.19 made on the 1st January 2016 to the Holiday Inn York. This amount doesn’t include VAT.
However the total on page one of the invoice comes to £1,638.48.
Even if you add the VAT to the amount paid at a rate of 20%, £1,155.19 * 120% only comes to £1,386.23p so it doesn’t make much sense to me.
However it’s possible although a dinner was included in the £80 a night price, that the room charges for bar food, room charges for rest food and a room charge for rest beverage were paid out of a different budget or by someone else. Or possibly some sort of discount was applied on the second missing page! Certainly the second page of the invoice would clear a lot of this up!
I could ask Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority to provide the missing page or pages but they’ve already been quite cross at me (after charging me £40 for copies) at how much officer time is involved in finding an invoice for the inspection and how they couldn’t charge me for the inspection etc etc.
After all there are only have three hundred or so administrative staff working at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service. Which when you consider all they have to do such as employee payroll, invoices, day-to-day admin it probably isn’t enough staff when you consider my request for invoices during the 30 day inspection period seemed to take at least between around nine and a dozen staff at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to deal with (maybe the costs they refer to are their own unique way of doing things?)
I won’t bother their auditors Grant Thornton with these sorts of trifling anomalies as their response is usually just we don’t know, ask Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service!
As their press office appear to be under instructions not to give out quotes on behalf of Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to me I haven’t asked them for a quote either before publishing as it seems to be a futile exercise.
Holiday Inn York invoice Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service 1st January 2016 resized
Bill 2016000024 Date 01/01/2016 Room 037 Twin Room Non Arrival 27/12/2015 Departure 01/01/2016 CRS Confirmation 61146719
Holiday Inn, York
Date
Description
Supplement
Qty.
Price
Amount
27/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
033 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
27/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
1
80.00
80.00
27/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
214 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
28/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
033 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
28/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
1
80.00
80.00
28/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
214 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
28/12
Dinner Food Incl
inc
-1
36.00
-36.00
28/12
Room Charge Bar Food
Check:2015051345
1
47.25
47.25
29/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
033 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
29/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
1
80.00
80.00
29/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
214 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
29/12
Dinner Food Incl
inc
-1
36.00
-36.00
29/12
Room Charge Bar Food
Check:2015051765
1
64.70
64.70
30/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
033 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
30/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
1
80.00
80.00
30/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
214 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
30/12
Dinner Food Incl
inc 033 Merseyside, Team
-1
27.10
-27.10
30/12
Dinner Food Incl
inc
-1
36.00
-36.00
30/12
Room Charge Rest Food
Check:2015051959
1
21.90
21.90
30/12
Room Charge Rest Food
Check:2015051962 033 Mers
1
19.15
19.15
30/12
Room Charge Rest Food
Check:2015052009
1
5.95
5.95
30/12
Room Charge Rest Food
Check:2015052011 033 Mers
1
7.95
7.95
30/12
Room Charge Bar Food
Check:2015051893
1
62.08
62.08
31/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
033 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
31/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
1
80.00
80.00
31/12
Accommodation Dinner Brea
214 Merseyside, Team
1
80.00
80.00
31/12
Room Charge Rest Food
Check:2015052073
1
85.70
85.70
31/12
Room Charge Rest Food
Check:2015052173
1
108.80
108.80
31/12
Room Charge Rest Beverage
Check:2015052073
1
15.00
15.00
This hotel is owned and operated by Kew Green Hotels (York) Limited under license from IHG Hotels.
Registered Office 2nd Floor, Dome Building, The Quadrant, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1DT
Company Registration 9096181, VAT Number 798600878
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