6 January (Part 1) - The Information Commissioner gets tough
It has been possible to detect a gradual change in the tone of letters from the Information Commissioner in recent months when dealing with Bexley council’s repeated flouting of the law, their patience may be wearing thin. This extract from a letter dated 3rd January 2012 looks like confirmation…
“I have drafted a formal Information Notice today which is to be issued to
the council within the next couple of days. This requires the council to supply
a copy of the withheld information and detailed submissions as to why it has
refused to disclose this information to you under the Act within a period
of 30 days. The 30 days will commence from the date the notice is served.
I have proceeded straight to an Information Notice in your case instead of
trying to obtain this information by less formal measures due to the council’s
previous reluctance to supply the Commissioner with any information of the
nature you requested.”
The Freedom of Information request in question is that referred to on
29 November 2011.
My Subject Access Request (SAR) submitted to Bexley council last May is still
unanswered. The Information Commissioner gave them ten days to comply just
before Christmas and the date for that expired yesterday - or arguably today if
you accept Bexley council’s right to
award
themselves an extra Bank Holiday. Done properly, the SAR should give interesting
clues to the identity of the obscene bloggers. If Will Tuckley doesn’t know who did
that he is clearly not worthy of his enormous salary. I want to give him every
chance to do the job properly so I sent the following today to Bexley’s FOI liaison officer.
You will no doubt be aware that the Information
Commissioner instructed you to fulfill your obligations under the Data
Protection Act and complete my Subject Access Request of last May by today.
However I appreciate that the ten days over Christmas and New Year is not the
best time to ensure complete and thorough provision of information; I therefore
do not propose to complain to the Information Commissioner for another ten days
from today.
A minimum response would be…
1) All the correspondence by councillors and officials from January to April
2011 which led to Mr. Tuckley reporting me to Bexley police for "Criticising
councillors at a personal level".
2) All the correspondence from early June 2011 when Mr. Tuckley and Council
Leader O'Neill apparently intervened to ensure the removal of content from the
obscene and homophobic blog, the blog being removed within hours of them
becoming aware of it.
3) All the correspondence leading up to and following Mr. Tuckley’s 7th July
2011 meeting with police who were investigating the crime. The police reports
confirm that I was one of three subjects of that meeting.
I trust a further ten days will give you ample opportunity to comply with the law.