Civil liberty attack on 'secretive' council
Alex Gore • Published 24 Nov 2011 16:58
5 Comments
TOWN hall bosses have come under attack for failing to provide civil liberties campaigners with details on incidents in which staff have lost personal data.
Reading Borough Council was one of only seven local authorities in the country which refused the Freedom of Information request by Big Brother Watch on legal grounds.
Reading turned down the request under Sections 40 (personal information) and 31 (investigations and proceedings) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The council has not commented on the refusal.
Reading East MP Rob Wilson said: "I hope that council bosses have a very good reason for not handing over details as requested, for example, to avoid jeopardising an ongoing police investigation.
"The Freedom of Information Act is there to ensure transparency in public authorities. Reading finds itself in a very small club of seven councils in the UK which have used the law to clam up and this may prompt suggestions that it lacks transparency.
"The council has a strong legal duty to ensure the security of personal data and I would therefore urge decision-makers to review their decision examining whether they should in fact release details to make sure that lessons have been learnt."
The group asked Reading for the number of cases in the past three years where data containing personal information of residents or staff was lost while in the custody of a council employee and the nature of the data.
It also requested the number of staff that have been disciplined for losing material and what steps the council has made to rectify the situation or other ramifications such as complaints from residents, changes in staff procedures and changes in use of technology.
In West Berkshire, there were 10 instances, including a lost memory stick, emails and post being sent to the wrong addresses and two cameras containing photographs of family events being stolen. Wokingham did not have a single incident.
Nationally, 132 authorities were involved in 1035 incidents of data loss with at least 35 losing information about children and those in care. Only 55 incidents were reported to the Information Commissioner's Office and just nine resulted in staff being sacked.
This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 24 Nov 11
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CavershamVoter
Unregistered User
Nov 24, 18:14
Report commentHow can Rob Wilson accuse the council of being secretive when he had a secret meeting with James Freeman regarding the changing of a bus route without consulting or even talking to the residents of Kidmore Road? As well as this given the Tories are currently stabbing each other in the back in a secret coup the idea of throwing stones at that the council is the height of hypocrisy.
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Yes 9
No 17
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The Muppets
Unregistered User
Nov 24, 21:05
Report commentOne need only look at the revolving cast of unlikely suspects that hold up Reading Borough Council to know tomfoolery is never far away. With local councillors like Tony Page, Kirsten Bayes, Twitter King Swaine and the like can you really expect the jobsworths at ground zero to behave any differently? Or with any integrity, common sense and other such things that the taxpayer's money won't likely purchase these days. However if you want to invest money in a political Carter's Circus via a brief stop at the Jeremy Kyle show then RBC is clearly the place to be! However I would add that Mr Wilson does actually appear to care about his public and should in no way be tarred with the same brush as the aforementioned cretins. That is why he is an MP and they mere councillors after all...
Recommend? Yes 18
No 6
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NotJohn
Unregistered User
Nov 25, 10:11
Report commentI think this FOI request has merit but this story is mainly about Rob Wilson not missing a chance to attack RBC, again
Recommend? Yes 5
No 14
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******
Nov 25, 21:44
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Howard Thomas
Unregistered User
Nov 29, 20:22
Report comment"The council has a strong legal duty to ensure the security of personal data and I would therefore urge decision-makers to review their decision examining whether they should in fact release details to make sure that lessons have been learnt."
Unfortunately Rob "learning lessons" to RBC only means how better they can learn to withold data that the public should have access to. Take an example , the Shinfield Road contract that was denied for no better reason than RBC didn't want it viewed. It wasn't even available to the public when the council books and contracts were open for public scrutiny in August. It took 3 weeks of dogged determination by a particular individual before he was allowed to view it !
This is just one example of many ! RBC simply refuse sight of stuff that they don't want seen regardless of their duty to show.
Dictatorship rather than representation and utter comtempt for the public as usual.
Recommend? Yes 7
No 1
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Gareth Epps
Unregistered User
Dec 16, 15:04
Report commentRBC has long had a culture of secrecy, and I secured a ruling from the Information Commissioner (in 2008) which stopped the council forwarding sensitive personal data in casework correspondence to Labour lead councillors who had no right to know. I also put pressure on them over their cavalier use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which the Chronicle kindly publicised: astonishingly RBC used their snooping powers for purposes including marketing and PR! (I never did get an answer why).
Their failure to disclose should be taken to the Information Commissioner, and the Council's culture of secrecy must end.
Recommend? Yes 1
No 0
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******
Jan 22, 16:18
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