Ceredigion Council Internal reviews of FOI requests Ref AD/13547 and Ref 790340 replied to as Customer Complaint after more than 50 working days

copies Ceredigion Council, Aberystwyth Council

Internal reviews of FOI requests Reference AD/13547 and Reference 790340 replied to as Customer Complaint after more than 50 working days

Dear Alun Williams,

On 10/08/2018 you sent a communication to me titled “”Re Matters outside the Freedom of Infprmation Act”” in which, (amongst other subjects) ,  you introduced the subject of 2 internal reviews of previous FOI requests  (the first relating to FOI request Reference AD/13547 – “T3 route from Wrexham to Aberystwyth instead of Barmouth and T2/T1 connectivity in Aberystwyth”. and the second relating to FOI request Reference 790340 – “Lack of Connectivity in Aberystwyth T2 from Dolgellau to T1C for Cardiff for passengers North of Aberystwyth”).   The internal reviews had not been provided by Ceredigion County Council in the timescale of 20 working days as required by the FOI guidlines.     The request for internal reviews of the two FOI requests were made on 20/05/2018 for AD/13547 (58 working days before your recent communication of 10/08/2018) and on 01/06/2018 for 790340 (50 working days before your recent communication of 10/08/2018).

In your recent communication of 10/08/2018 you ignore all the questions I asked the reviewer to cover in relation to the responses to my original FOI requests (FOI Reference AD/13547 and FOI Reference 790340), and say you have no further comments to make . You then go on to explain in your letter (regarding matters outside the Freedom of Infprmation Act)  that it is not always possible to resolve matters to the satisfaction of service users (ie Ceredigion County Council were not carrying out an internal review of an FOI request but were treating  the internal review as a Customer complaint under the Ceredigion Council Customer Charter ).

You then go on to provide 2 incorrect statements that are totally irrelevent to the 2 requested internal reviews.  The first incorrect statement is that “”the Transport Minister has provided assurances that improvements will be made to the T2 services””  and the second incorrect statement is that “”the Trawscymru Strategic Management Board are in direct contact with me to answer my concerns and queries regarding service provision””.   Both these statements are incorrect.

You then go on to say that you have to allocate resources fairly and that there are no outstanding matters to be addressed.. There are plenty of outstanding matters to be addressed by both the Welsh Government and Ceredigion County Council. .

In relation to these 2 internal reviews, which you have dealt with as Customer Complaints,  there are 3 issues which the Information Commissioner will have to deal with . The first issue is the splitting of FOI requests into 2 separate requests , one FOI and the other a Customer Complaint in order to evade providing answers and delay matters.   The second issue is the fact that Ceredigion County Council agree to carry out an Internal Review of an FOI request and then ignore all the questions  that I asked the reviewer to consider in relation to the responses to the original request  and then go on to say that it has been  decided by Ceredigion County Council that the original request is not an FOIA request at all,.   The third issue is in respect of the length of time to produce the internal review .  Taking more than 50 days to say “”No further comments”” and say that the internal review of the FOI request is being dealt with as a Customer complaint is completely unacceptable.   The ICO guidelines are quite clear and state the following

“”Commissioner considers it important that internal reviews are completed as promptly as possible and so is introducing this guidance setting out what he considers to be a reasonable timescale for public authorities to undertake an internal review 
following a request by an applicant.the Commissioner considers that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working days from the date of the request for review. There may be a small number of cases which involve
exceptional circumstances where it may be reasonable to take longer. In
those circumstances, the public authority should, as a matter of good
practice, notify the requester and explain why more time is needed.
In our view, in no case should the total time taken exceed 40 working days.””

I have been very patient with Ceredigion Council and have refrained from making any complaints to the Information Commissioner when I could have done on a number of occasions.   The real culprit is the Welsh Government , but Ceredigion Council appear to have fallen in line with the Welsh Government and are using the same techniques of evasion to avoid releasing information.   For that reason I shall therefore be making a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner regarding the behaviour of Ceredigion Council officials in relation to complying with FOI requests..

Yours sincerely,

Dr John McTighe,