A bandit local authority, relentlessly and forensically exposed by Neil Wilby Media as breaking the law at least once every working day, has retreated to its standard tactics of deceit and opacity to avoid yet more reputational damage.
Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council (OMBC) has also, remarkably, elected to defy the Cabinet Office in its latest ‘cover-up’ scheme.
On 27th October, 2023, a request under the Freedom of Information Act, 2000 (FOIA or the Act) was submitted to that Council by journalist, Neil Wilby, in these terms:
“Earlier today I was sent a weblink to a request made to OMBC, via the What Do They Know platform, on 8th September, 2023
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p…
“It, naturally, raises the public interest issue of non-compliance of OMBC with the Freedom of Information Act. Not just to this specific request, but viewed through a wider lens.
“Could you please, therefore, disclose the following information?
“1. How many FOIA requests has OMBC received in the periods (i) 1st November, 2021 until 31 October, 2022 and (ii) 1st November. 2022 and 30th September. 2023.
“Those time periods mirror a similar FOIA request I made earlier this month relating to data subject access requests.
“2. Please break down those totals into requests made via the WhatDoTheyKnow platform and requests made directly to OMBC.
“3. How many of those requests were finalised within 20 working days?
“4. How many FOIA requests resulted in the applicant subsequently making an internal review request?
“5. How many of those internal reviews were completed within 20 working days?”
It was acknowledged 3 days later and allocated a reference number by the Council: FOI 19406
On 1st November, 2023, Neil Wilby added an annotation to the request:
“When this application [request] to Oldham Council was made on 27.10.23, I wasn’t aware of another FOIA request made in September, 2023 and still not finalised.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/oldham_coliseum_theatre_building
“It was brought to my attention earlier today. I have given that applicant assistance which, it is hoped, will be helpful in speeding up the process of obtaining their requested information.”
[The Council’s ‘cover-up’ over the closure Oldham Coliseum theatre is a story for another day]
On 3rd November, 2023, the Council provided their response to FOI 19046:
“1. (i) 1st November, 2021 until 31st October, 2022, 1166 requests received.
(ii) 1st November, 2022 until 30th September, 2023, 1,212 requests received
“2. We do not record this information when logging requests, as the source platform [WhatDoTheyKnow] has no impact on the handling of a request. To identify this, each record would need to be manually reviewed to identify those requests submitted via the WhatDoTheyKnow platform. We estimate that it will take us in excess of 18 hours to determine the appropriate material and locate, retrieve and extract the information in reference to this element of your request. Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for Local Government is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours at £25 per hour in determining whether the Council holds the information i.e. in locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
“3. (i) 1st November, 2021 until 31st October, 2022, 991 [out of 1166] requests finalised within 20 working days
(ii) 1st November, 2022 until 30th September, 2023, 1068 [1212] requests finalised within 20 working days
“4. (i) 1st November, 2021 until 31st October, 2022, 24 internal review requests made.
(ii) 1st November, 2022 until 30th September, 2023, 45 internal review requests made.
“5. (i) 1st November, 2021 until 31st October, 2022, 13 [out of 24] internal review requests finalised within 20 working days
(ii) 1st November, 2022 until 30th September, 2023, 33 [out of 45] internal review requests finalised within 20 working days.
“If you disagree with the handling of your request then you may appeal to: Legal Services at Oldham Council (email address provided).
“If you still disagree with the decision following your appeal then you may
wish to contact the Office of the Information Commissioner (email address provided).
Neil Wilby’s reply to the Council’s finalisation of the request was framed as follows and made on the same day as it was received (3rd November, 2023):
“Thank you for providing the information.
“My question regarding requests made via the What Do They Know (WDTK) platform was, regrettably, not well made and, in fact, without stretching a point too far, your Council could also have refused it under section 21.
“With a concentrated effort, they [the requests] can be physically counted on WDTK.
“But that brings into play another issue: Looking at the outcomes of OMBC requests on WDTK, there seems to be a much higher rate of non-compliance than is suggested by the overall totals you have disclosed in this FOIA request.
“A remark that would also apply to my own [Neil Wilby’s] requests made to your Council over the past 3 years.
“In that light, may I ask that the figures be checked again?”
On 9th November, 2023, the Council replied. In effect, standing behind their initial FOIA response:
“The response to your Freedom of Information request was based on information held by the council and not that of any third parties.
“The council is satisfied with the response issued and that no amendments to this need to be made.”
After further research, that stance was challenged, in measured and forensic terms, by Neil Wilby on 22nd November, 2023. Knowing, from experience, that this may well be a FOIA request that ends up being resolved either by the Information Commissioner’s Office or by way of a legal challenge before a judge at an Information Rights Tribunal.
“Please treat this message as a request for an internal review by way of section 45 FOIA.
“Having checked the finalisations of FOIA requests by OMBC on the WhatDoTheyKnow platform they return a markedly higher percentage of non-compliance than is apparent from the out-turn of the instant request when (i) considering all requests (ii) considering only requests made by Neil Wilby.
“The working (and logical) hypothesis, therefore, has to be that the data disclosed in the instant request is not the true position.
“Your remark that they are accurate is noted. But, by way of the same analysis of WDTK requests, it would not be at all safe to rely on what Oldham Council says at first instance.
On the following day, the Council confirmed that it had logged the internal review request and would ‘respond in due course’.
Twenty-one working days later (on 21st December, 2023) Neil Wilby informed the Council that the matter was to be escalated. The message to them was again expressed with a future appearance before a Tribunal judge very much in mind. Nevertheless, it pulls no punches:
“I refer to the Internal Review request made on 22nd November, 2023, acknowledged and recorded the following day.
“This is the basis of a complaint to be made to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
“The key document here is the Freedom of Information Code of Practice (CoP) issued by the Cabinet Office. For convenience and reference, a weblink to same is provided below:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk…
“Set against that is the well documented propensity of OMBC to routinely disregard Parliament’s edicts and contrive to break the law or contravene Codes, Rules, Protocols, Directions, on average, at least once every working day.
“Overlaid by a long-running campaign to vex, annoy and harass the applicant [Neil Wilby] making the instant request. Who just so happens to be the journalist whose assiduous research and careful analysis has resulted in OMBC’s shortcomings, highlighted in the above paragraph, entering the public domain.
“Para 5.4 of the CoP reads thus: “Requests for internal review should be acknowledged and the applicant informed of the target date for responding. This should normally be within 20 working days of receipt”.
– OMBC neither provided a target date, nor have they responded within 20 working days.
“Para 5.5 of the CoP reads thus: 5.5 “If an internal review is complex, requires consultation with third parties or the relevant information is of a high volume, public authorities may need longer than 20 working days to consider the issues and respond. In these instances, the public authority should inform the applicant and provide a reasonable target date by which they will be able to respond to the internal review. It is best practice for this to be no more than an additional 20 working days, although there will sometimes be legitimate reasons why a longer extension is needed.
– The instant Internal Review request is not complex, requires no third party consultation and the relevant information is not high volume.
“The Internal Review request couldn’t, in all truth, have been more concise and easier to finalise.
“It articulated a well grounded suspicion that the finalisation of the information request was either mistaken (or, in fact, dishonest).
“A competent, experienced reviewer would, it has to be said, require, in all probability, less than two hours to review the request, come to a conclusion and provide an answer to the applicant.
“For centuries, journalists have worked to a simple creed when dealing with public bodies and it has proved to be well nigh infallible: The longer it takes to provide an answer to a question the less likely it is be truthful when finally given. A matter to which I will invite the ICO to give most careful attention.
“Extensive dealings between this applicant and OMBC, over the past three years, have heavily underscored that creed. The propensity to deceive, on all the evidence, being almost instinctive.
“The core of the complaint to the ICO is, therefore, that OMBC is prepared to defy the Cabinet Office to conceal the fact that the finalisation of the instant request was not the true position and the admission, as such, would be further damaging to a local authority whose reputation can be most charitably characterised as at a low ebb.”
To date, there has been no acknowledgement from the Legal Services Department at Oldham Council, populated by no less than eighteen lawyers, and the message did not spur them into providing a belated response to the Internal Review request. Neil Wilby Media‘s readers – incidentally, running at record numbers – are invited to draw their own inferences from that inaction.
That same Department is headed by the Borough Solicitor, Paul Entwistle, (pictured above taking a power nap during a Full Council meeting), who featured centrally, and not at all in complimentary terms, in another Neil Wilby Media article published last week (read in full here).
The complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office will be made on 27th December, 2023 but is likely, on present evidence, to take at least six months to resolve. If the matter then proceeds to a Tribunal that, very likely, wouldn’t convene until sometime in 2025.
Paul Entwistle has been afforded the courtesy of right of reply, as has Cllr Abdul Jabbar, Oldham Council Cabinet Member with portfolio responsibility for Legal Services.
Follow Neil Wilby on Twitter (here) and Neil Wilby Media on Facebook (here) for signposts to any updates.
Page last updated: Monday 25th December, 2023 at 0855 hours.
Thank you for reading and a polite request: If you feel this article is of value and in the public interest, and wish to make a contribution to the running costs of this website, it would be very much appreciated. Donations can made securely (and anonymously if required), via Buy Me A Coffee at this link or via PayPal at this link.
Corrections: Please let me know if there is a mistake in this article. I will endeavour to correct it as soon as possible.
Picture credit: OMBC
Right of reply: If you are mentioned in this article and disagree with it, please let me have your comments. Provided your response is not defamatory it will be added to the article.
© Neil Wilby 2015-2023. Unauthorised use, or reproduction, of the material contained in this article, without permission from the author, is strictly prohibited. Extracts from, and links to, the article (or blog) may be used, provided that credit is given to Neil Wilby Media, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Neil Wilby Media 
Leave a comment