PARISH COUNCIL REF: HSPC/20/FoI/060320
DISCLOSURE LOG FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST
HACONBY & STAINFIELD PARISH COUNCIL REF: HSPC/20/FoI/060320 Letter to Parish Council / Post on Haconby & Stainfield Facebook Group 6 March 2020:
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST
Under the Freedom of Information Act it is my right to seek recorded information held by Haconby & Stainfield Parish Council – a public body. I am contacting you in relation to Claim Number F88YJ854 served on Haconby & Stainfield Parish Council by the County Court Money Claims Centre in July 2019, and the consequent judgement made at the County Court of Boston on 16 December 2019 requiring the Council to pay the claimant a total of £1,308.40.
I request:
a) A copy of the claim served upon the Council.
b) A copy of the judgement made against the Council.
c) A breakdown of all legal costs and expenses incurred by the Council in defending this claim.
d) Details of / copies of policies, protocols or training put in place since December 2019 to ensure that Councillors and the Council conduct themselves / operate in a manner which will prevent any further illegal conduct in the future.
e) A copy of the Council’s code of conduct and/or standards policy for councillors.
I understand that for reasons of data protection you will not be able to disclose the name of the claimant and may need to redact their contact details from the documents requested. This should not however prevent you from disclosing information about the nature of the claim and/or the judge’s reasons for finding against you. I expect to hear from you within 20 working days. If you do not supply the information requested I reserve the right to ask you to review your decision, and if I am not satisfied with your response, to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Parish Council Post on Haconby & Stainfield Facebook Group 7 March 2020:
The Parish Council notes your Freedom of Information request. It will be dealt with as required by Freedom of Information Act. Parish Council Letter 3 April 2020:
Freedom Of Information Request Our Reference: HSPC/20/FoI/060320
Thank you for your letter of 6th March 2020 requesting the following information in relation to Claim Number F88YJ854 served on Haconby & Stainfield Parish Council by the County Court Money Claims Centre in July 2019, and the consequent judgement made at the County Court of Boston on 16 December 2019 requiring the Council to pay the claimant a total of £1,308.40:
a) A copy of the claim served upon the Council.
b) A copy of the judgement made against the Council.
c) A breakdown of all legal costs and expenses incurred by the Council in defending this claim.
d) Details of / copies of policies, protocols or training put in place since December 2019 to ensure that Councillors and the Council conduct themselves / operate in a manner which will prevent any further illegal conduct in the future.
e) A copy of the Council’s code of conduct and/or standards policy for councillors.
The Council treated your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and sought advice from the Lincolnshire Association of Local Councils. A search for the information has now been completed, and the Council responds as follows:
a) The council has approached the regulatory authority for advice on this matter.
b) The council has approached the regulatory authority for advice on this matter.
c) No information held.
d) The council has approached the regulatory authority for advice on this matter.
e) The information you requested can be found here: http://parishes.lincolnshire.gov.uk/Files/Parish/104/190516HSPCParishInfoPolicyGuideV ersion15.pdf page 3 – Code of Conduct (page 19). If you are not satisfied with this response or you wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of your request, then you should contact the Council in the first instance. If informal resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied, you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner's website, http://www.ico.org.uk.
Message to Haconby and Stainfield Parish Councillors Facebook Page via Messenger/Post on Haconby & Stainfield Facebook Group 5 April 2020:
Sadly, as expected, a totally inadequate response to my FOI request to the Parish Council regarding the legal case they lost. Especially as, in the Code of Conduct they do actually provide access to, it states that as Councillors: You are accountable for your decisions to the public and you must co-operate fully with whatever scrutiny is appropriate to your office. You must be as open as possible about your decisions and actions and the decisions and actions of your authority and should be prepared to give reasons for those decisions and actions. Cllr Richard Dixon-Warren, Cllr Phillipa Dixon-Warren, Cllr Brian Blackbourn, Cllr Janine Rayfield, Cllr Derek Baily & Cllr David Winn – it appears you are all currently failing in these duties. It is especially worrying that a ‘breakdown of costs and expenses incurred in relation to this legal claim’ cannot be provided as “no information held”. Do they not keep accounts?! (Messenger version – ‘Do you not keep accounts?!’)
Parish Council Letter 7 April 2020 Freedom Of Information Request Our Reference: HSPC/20/FoI/060320
The Council thanks you for your message to Haconby and Stainfield Parish Councillors Facebook page at 13.03 on Sunday 5th April 2020. It regrets that you find its response of 3rd April 2020 ‘totally inadequate’. The Council believes that its Councillors are co-operating fully with your scrutiny and are being as open as possible. It responded to your request for information within 20 working days, as required, to inform you that it has sought advice from the regulatory authority on three of your questions and to provide what information it has on the other two questions. The Council finds it unacceptable that you publicly accuse individual Councillors, by name and without evidence, of ‘failing in these duties’. It invites you to provide evidence to support these accusations or to publicly withdraw them and apologise on the same Facebook page that they appeared. The Council points out that its Code of Conduct has been accessible online since 2017, that details of its expenditure are recorded in the Minutes of its meetings (routinely published on noticeboards and Facebook), and that its accounting statements are published on its website.
Parish Council Letter 20 April 2020: Freedom Of Information Request Our Reference: HSPC/20/FoI/060320
The Council writes to follow up its letter of 3 April responding to your letter of 6 March 2020 requesting information in relation to Claim Number F88YJ854, which was treated as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). The Council sought information from the Lincolnshire Association of Local Councils and the Information Commissioner’s Office (the regulatory authority).
Advice has been received and the Council completes its response as follows:
a) A copy of the claim served upon the Council – refused.
b) A copy of the judgement made against the Council – provided (redacted). See Enclosure 1.
c) A breakdown of all legal costs and expenses incurred by the Council in defending this claim – no information held. No legal costs or expenses were incurred.
d) Details of / copies of policies, protocols or training put in place since December 2019 – provided. The Council has added a ‘Contingency Planning’ item to the agenda of its regular meetings since January 2020.
e) A copy of the Council’s code of conduct and/or standards policy for councillors – provided. See: http://parishes.lincolnshire.gov.uk/Files/Parish/104/190516HSPCParishInfoPolicyGuideVersion1 5.pdf page 3 – Code of Conduct (page 19). This is reasonably accessible in the public domain.
Your request for a copy of the claim has been refused by application of Section 32 (Court, inquiry or arbitration records) and Section 40(2) (third party personal information) of FOIA, explained below.
Application of Section 32 (Court, inquiry or arbitration records) Section 32(1) provides an absolute exemption from the right to information held only by virtue of being recorded in a document that was served upon the Council for the purposes of proceedings in the claim. You may seek a copy of the document on payment of a fee. However, the information held in the claim form includes personal information about those who provided testimony. There is therefore an overlap with Section 40 (the exemption for personal data). Application of Section 40(2) (third party personal information) Section 40 provides an exemption from the right to information held if it is personal data as defined in the DPA. Some of the information requested relates to living identifiable individuals and therefore, it falls within the definition of 'personal data' under Section 3(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA18). Section 40(2) provides that information is exempt from disclosure if it is the personal data of an individual other than the requester and where one of the conditions listed in Section 40(3) or 40(4) is satisfied. This applies where the disclosure of the information to any member of the public would contravene any of the principles relating to the processing of personal data set out in Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (`the DP principles'). In particular, Article 5(1)(a) is relevant and states that 'Personal data shall be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject'. Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR specifies the basis in the lawfulness of processing. The Council agrees that there is a legitimate interest in the disclosure of the information. This is the general requirement for transparency in public life and the issue of interest to the public where disclosure of the details of the claim would demonstrate accountability. The Council has therefore performed the balancing test: does the legitimate interest outweigh the interests and rights of the individual? In considering whether the identified interests in disclosure outweigh ‘the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require the protection of personal data’, and particularly the potential harm or distress disclosure may cause, the Council has taken into account: Pressing social needs for interference with privacy rights. These included the objectives of transparency and accountability, particularly with respect to Council decision-making processes, demonstration of value for money and regard for the financial health of the Council.
Reasonable expectations of the claimant. Providing a copy of the claim served upon the Council, even redacted, would identify the claimant. This would represent a breach of the claimant’s data protection rights. It could prejudice the rights and freedoms or legitimate interests of the claimant, and such processing of the information would be both unfair and unlawful. If the pressing social need for interference in privacy rights would be proportionate.
The Council has decided that the legitimate interest does not outweigh the interests and rights of the individual, and that Section 40 (2) applies. Your FOI request will be recorded on an FOI disclosure log which will be published on the Haconby and Stainfield Parish Council website in due course. If you are not satisfied with this response or you wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of your request, then you should contact the Council in the first instance. If informal resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. The Information Commissioner’s website is at http://www.ico.org.uk, and can be contacted at: On-line: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ 5 By telephone: 0303 123 1113 / Fax: 01625 524510 By post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF (the Information Commissioner's Office asks that you make contact online where possible and do not correspond by post) Enclosure See over
