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News and Comment August 2011

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5 August - Catch 22?

The last public council meeting was held on 13th July and there is not another scheduled until 2nd November. One must wonder if it is part of the general clamp down on transparency within Bexley council. Is a 16 week interval a further attempt to restrict questioning? There will be a 13 week wait for another cabinet meeting but questions aren’t allowed there. Cabinet members draw a minimum allowance of £22,615 a year.

While Bexley council is busy doing not a lot at the moment, so too it would seem is the Chief Executive, Will Tuckley, for there is every indication that it is he who is responsible for the failure to answer my Subject Access Request. (SAR). It is unanswered after eleven weeks; 17 working days past the statutory final date. Bexley council has got itself into an unwinnable situation here; it is legally obliged to provide copies of all the documentation relating to me and they cannot do that without revealing information about the Harassment Letter and the obscene blog. Exposing the culprit(s) might precipitate a by-election once the media are informed, the alternative is to provide Subject Access data with the useful information redacted and find themselves in breach of the Data Protection Act. To complete an SAR on myself without reference to the Harassment Letter and the obscene blog would prove Bexley council’s dishonesty and provoke an instant complaint to the Information Commissioner. Not producing the SAR leads up the same path.

Not exactly ‘doing nothing’ but slowing down, first due to the rain, and then the 30º heat and ultimately holidays, is the petition. There is only a small window of opportunity after people get home from work and before they wouldn’t welcome being disturbed after settling down for the evening. However the completion rate remains around 95% and some of the comments have been most encouraging; amazingly about a third of householders when asked to sign already know about the petition. It hasn’t been mentioned anywhere but here on Bonkers so the site visitor statistics must be translating into a widespread local readership very satisfactorily.

I must say a special thank you to the lady who thought the blog was more interesting than watching TV which makes it even more difficult to say what must be said today. The lack of public meetings and the council’s reluctance to accept or answer questions impacts on what can be reported here, so August looks likely to be a thin month. Unless anything very unexpected occurs I am going to take the opportunity for a weekend off. If, like the lady says, there is nothing on TV there is bound to be a DVD bought on impulse that I have never found time to watch.

 

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