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News and Comment May 2024

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18 May - A pain in the backside

It has now been established that Dimitri Shvorob is not vexatious but he may be A Very Naughty Boy guilty of harassment under the Environmental Information Regulations. Every time he asks a question that can be contorted into having an environmental impact, like the Information Commissioner’s example of Zebra crossings causing additional vehicle pollution, to which I might add its flashing beacon might cause one more gas fired power station to be fired up, poor old Dimitri will be in trouble. Any question which causes a stressed bureaucrat to sigh and expel additional Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere will put Dimitri’s question in jeopardy.

A ridiculous scenario obviously but that is where crooked decisions by crooked organisations lead us.

Somewhat to my surprise Dimitri was not critical of yesterday’s blog which trod an uneasy path between him and Bexley Council which had wrongly accused him of vexatiousness. By the legal definition maybe he is not vexatious but yesterday an email from me to him used the term “a pain in the backside” which amounts to much the same thing.

In my book anyone whose mission is to expose the worst aspects of Bexley Council cannot be all bad but his boundaries are different to mine. Collecting information as a hobby activity is unappealing to me and not just because there is a cost associated with it. An hour or two’s work on each FOI according to Bexley Council so one might guess that Dimitri’s 100+ FOIs came in at under £5,000. Not a lot in the grand scheme of things but a guess was not good enough for the mysterious Mr. Chapman who asked Cabinet Member David Leaf to be more precise.

Having posed the formal question in writing Mr. Chapman indulged in his own little bit of wastefulness by failing to turn up to put it to the Council in person and was apparently oblivious to the cost of asking a question which required far too much historical research. Deputy Leader Leaf was much more sensible and didn’t bother with dusting off his abacus and merely guessed that Dimitri has cost us all a few thousand pounds.
Question

For David’s full answer click the extract above.

£5,000 or whatever the true figure may be will pale into insignificance compared to the cost of the months of ICO work; dreaming up a dubious legal workaround to dig Bexley Council out of its hole, writing a 31 page reply and handling the inevitable Appeal.

Everywhere one looks this country is bogged down by red tape and unnecessary regulations and the tax implication is why we all feel worse off. The FOIA was Tony Blair’s handiwork. What happened to David Cameron’s Bonfire of the Quangos? Another Tory lie which has led to the highest taxes ever.

 

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