Hi all

I sent in a FOI request to my local council who uses 0800's for council tennant repairs but uses 0870's to let us pay our council tax!

Anyways I sent in the standard cut n paste jobbie off the site and ive had a letter back asking for more information.
----

Thank you for your FOI request. blah blah blah.
before I can answer your request fully I need to clarify some of the questions you have asked, mainly the points in 1.4, 2.4 and 3.4 below.

  Have you considered the revised COI guidelines?

Please could you reply to myself as soon as possible, so I can complete your FOI request with further clarification of what you meen by "COI guidelines".

blah blah.
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So what are COI guidelines? cheers

Oh and would the Rail Passengers Commitee covered under the FOI?

http://www.coi.gov.uk/aboutcoi.php?page=58

It provides guidance on use of 08x numbers for call centres and is funded (I'm assuming) by government.

They have a download guide available here in .pdf (acrobat reader) format (don't forget to view the revised guide just below it).

Hi MC661
They are probably covered, as they have a public function.  Just make your request anyway, if they are not covered they would tell you.  You can also ask the Information Commissioner.
KK

wrote on Jun 11^th, 2005 at 12:16pm:

Hi all I sent in a FOI request to my local council who uses 0800's for council tennant repairs but uses 0870's to let us pay our council tax!

Isn't that discrimination? I would write to your local councillor as well.

thing is my local councillor is .. err well its me!

wrote on Jun 13^th, 2005 at 11:39am:

thing is my local councillor is .. err well its me!

Well that makes for an interesting situation. I would think you would be able to walk into the office and get all this information without writing to them.

No.
Belive it or not its easier and quicker to do an FOI rather then beat around the bushes getting any officers to answer anything.

That seems to me to be somewhat frightening. It further confirms my increasing suspicions that bureaucrats both at local and national level are increasingly out of the control of our elected representatives! In other words the tail is wagging the dog? Things are now really being controlled by unelected bureaucrats, locally, nationally and in the EU (Council of Ministers and Eurocrats).

That is not what Democracy is supposed to be about?

Regional Assemblies!

The vote in the North was a resounding "No" so what have  got in my area?

The (unelected and unaccountable) Eastern Regional Assembly.

Freedom of Information Request

Further to my letter of 13th June, I am now in a postion to provide the information requested.

1. The Borough Council uses 0870 in order to provide a call centre environment.
1.1 We recieve no income from the use of these numbers
1.1.1 We recieve the telephone and call centre equipment and queuing systems free of charge.
I cannot release the equivalent geographical number as we do not have it.

2.  We Use 4 different which are free for the public. 3 of these are 0800 prefixs, one is a 0500 prefix.
We pay 4.98p per miniute on the 0800 and 13p per miniute on the  0500.
The 0800 attracts a service charge of £39.97 each.
The 0500 attracts a service charged of £300 a year.

If you wish to request an internal review blah blah blah...

Not an internal review - unless they really want to improve their overpriced telephone systems and services...

wrote on Jun 13^th, 2005 at 11:39am:

thing is my local councillor is .. err well its me!

Why don't you put down a motion to the next meeting of full council resolving that your council will not use these 0870 or 0845 numbers in the future.  I know a councillor on Mole Valley District Council who did just that and got it passed.

Or you could get the policy called in for review at your next Scrutiny Committee surely?

wrote on Jun 14^th, 2005 at 1:26am:

Well that makes for an interesting situation. I would think you would be able to walk into the office and get all this information without writing to them.

You haven't been a councillor then.  This isn't the real world.  Just conjure up the image of Sir Humphrey Appleby and Jim Hacker in Yes Minister.  That's exactly how the relationship is except that local councillors aren't full time and don't even have offices in the building in most cases.

The only people who might be able to demand the info from the senior employed staff are the Leader of the Council or other members of the Cabinet in any authority with a cabinet model.  The rest of the backbench councillors have very few powers indeed.  Controlling the planning and the pub licensing hours is what they are left with on the average district and borough council.

So so true NGM.

We got that ever so wonderful cabinet system *sarcasim*. We still have a broom cupboard up on the top floor which has 1 terminal in it, and a laptop dock bay and a slow printer.
We all get free Dell laptops and free broadband/telephone line (For Council Related purposes only!)

I am a lowly backbencher on the side which hasnt got power,  We dont even have a controlling vote on ANYTHING! Other then scrunity which even then they still have the casting vote!

The authority of which I have some knowledge is one of those that has been allowed to retain its committee structure because it has a population of less than 80,000.  Despite that a lot of the day to day power seems to still lie only in the hands of those councillors who claim to be part of the group executive.

One party (Con) is nominally trying to run an unofficial minority administration but are 2 councillors short of an overall majority.  Lib Dems only have 2 councillors less and Independents hold the balance with 5 councillors.

This local authority has been no overall control for all but 2 of the last 31 years since it was set up.  As a result its culture is heavily officer dominated and although there are some pink confidential papers specially for councillors, that the public cannot access, the council officers have access to far more information that the councillors cannot on the whole access.  Requests for councillors to have internet computer access to many of the documents not generally available to the general public have so far been politely evaded by the council IT staff.

Councillors on this authority do not get a councillor computer or a dedicated phone line for council business.  They do get an IT allowance of 300 quid a year towards providing a computer and part of the home broadband line.

If a councillor should ever go into the council offices in the daytime rather than in the evenings (when the meetings are held) they will on the whole be left feeling heavily like a fish out of water.

The mere backbench councillors do however seem to have some real powers to overturn any bad officer recommendations on more controversial planning applications.