Neil Wilby Media

A notorious ‘cover-up’ unitary authority, routinely exposed elsewhere on this Neil Wilby Media website as one of the most opaque and ineffective in the country, faces yet more public humiliation.

Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, with its reserves rapidly depleting and the spectre of bankruptcy hanging over it, amongst myriad other operational and staffing problems (read more here), continues to break the law with impunity almost every working day (read more here).

The headline of that web-linked article, published in October, 2023, ‘Bandit council defies Parliament almost every working day‘ certainly ruffled feathers amongst the OMBC senior paid officer contingent. As did two follow-up pieces in the succeeding months: ‘Bandit council defies Cabinet Office in latest cover-up‘ (read here) and ‘Political oversight deficit laid bare at bandit council‘ (read here). 

All three of those articles are very solidly grounded in Freedom of Information Act requests made by the author of this article, Neil Wilby, and the responses from Oldham Council. The facts speak for themselves.

But, despite being plainly irked at the repeated criticism, and the use of the term ‘bandit’, most notably the hapless, heavily over-promoted assistant chief executive, Shelley Kipling (read more here), their manner of conducting business with a well-known journalist, in plain sight on the hugely popular What Do They Know platform, gets ever worse and more blatant. 

The same journalist argues very strongly, again backed up by the facts and copious evidence, that this Council is not only breaking the law routinely and deliberately, hence the ‘bandit’ soubriquet’, but, commencing last year, embarked on a campaign to vex, annoy and harass Neil Wilby at every opportunity. For having the temerity to hold errant public officials, politicians and political parties to account with regular, fact-based exposés. 

There are now over forty emails highlighting this behaviour, plus numerous articles on this website, yet absolutely nothing has been done about these complaints. Connected, perhaps, to the very strong suspicion that the Council Leader, Cllr Arooj Shah, also known as ‘The Cover-up Queen’ the subject of regular (and well-grounded) exposés by Neil Wilby (read more here), is at the very heart of the harassment campaign.

More immediately, the latest and very simple request made to Oldham Council by Neil Wilby, on 4th March, 2023, has not only led to exposure of more law-breaking and covering up, it adds further weight to the proposition that the Council’s harassment campaign against him is managed from the very top of the Labour administration and its adjacent cabal of senior paid officers. The aforementioned Mrs Kipling, according to one very placed source, survives only because of Cllr Shah’s patronage and willingness to do her ‘dirty work’.

The subject FOIA request made by Neil Wilby came about as a result of suspicions raised by comparing the outcomes of three previous requests to Oldham Council and data extracted from the Labour administration’s proposals for the 2024/25 Budget.

One of those FOIA requests was submitted by a journalist working at The Oldham Times, Jack Fifield and the other two by a member of the public who does not wish to be named. The discrepancies were in the numbers of Council staff employed in various salary bands, particularly at the more senior levels.

Jack’s request, and outcome, was the foundation for a lengthy and highly forensic article published in the local newspaper and headlined: ‘Just a fifth of Oldham Council’s top-paid managers live in borough’. The rest of the article needs little further explanation. 

The other two FOIA requests were finalised late last year and seen by Neil Wilby Media. Signed off by the same OMBC Human Resources executive on both occasions.

This is how the latest Neil Wilby FOIA request to Oldham Council was framed:

“In June, 2022, The Oldham Times published this article grounded in a Freedom of Information Act request made to your council: https://www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk/news/20…

“Please provide under the same Act the following:

1. A copy of the request and a copy of its finalisation.

2. The same information in the same format requested by the newspaper, but with an operative date of 31st December, 2023.”

It really couldn’t have been made any more straightforward for the Information Management Department, whom acknowledged the request on the following day.

Since then, despite the request’s simplicity and the minimal amount of time it would require to deal with it, there has been an eerie silence from the Civic Centre. Which prompted this complaint (or internal review request as it is more formally known) to the Council on 28th March, 2024:

“Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information Act (‘FOIA’ or ‘the Act’) reviews.

“I am writing to request an internal review of Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council’s handling of my FOI request ‘Paid officers living in or out of the Borough’.

“The grounds for complaint are as follows:

“1. The instant request is, as usual and by design, very simple in its construction. The retrieval of the information, from what is disclosed already in an earlier request made by another journalist applicant, places minimal burden on your Council.

“2. Today marks the late afternoon of the nineteenth working day since the request was submitted.

“3. Section 10 of the Act states (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), a public authority must comply with section 1(1) *PROMPTLY* and in any event not later than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt.

“4. There are many rulings from First Tier Tribunal (information Rights) judges to the effect that , under the Act, the twentieth working day is a backstop, not a target date. ‘Promptly’, is the key indicator. There is also an Upper Tier Tribunal ruling that also deals with the definition (see paras 36, 37 and 38).
https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKUT/AAC

“5. Two other FOIA requests to OMBC, made via the WhatDoTheyKnow platform on 6th and 7th March by different applicants, and after the instant request on 4th March, have already been finalised. That gives rise to considerable concern on discrimination grounds.

“6. As does the fact that every request this applicant has made to OMBC, over the past year, has been finalised on either the twentieth working day or later (mostly the latter). Without any explanation at all for these delays being provided. That is concerning insofar as a public authority should treat each request as applicant blind. Here it is very clear that OMBC is, habitually, ‘playing the man’ not the request.

“7. It is, therefore, profoundly disappointing that Oldham Council, yet again, chooses to flagrantly disrespect Parliament, discriminate against a newsgatherer authorised by the National Police Chiefs Council (and continue to vex and annoy the applicant) in this way – and on a public platform with a substantial and influential audience reach and penetration, no less.

“8. Your Council is, accordingly and respectfully, encouraged to remedy this unlawful defect at the earliest available opportunity.

“A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p…“

On any independent view that is a damning indictment of any public authority: Apart from laziness and ineptitude, which comes almost as standard in Oldham Council, persistent law-breaking; discrimination: harassment; and disrespecting the National Police Chiefs Council (Arooj Shah is a close friend of Stephen Watson, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police and leading light in the NPCC).

The response to that internal review or, indeed, the outcome to the request, whichever comes first, will be reported by Neil Wilby Media soon after receipt. 

In the meantime, right of reply will be offered to Cllr Shah and Mrs Kipling. But readers are very strongly advised not to hold their breath.

Separately, the Oldham Labour Group is to be tackled, yet again, over the fake election Pledge published on its website of holding its senior paid council officers (read more here). Their Secretary, Cllr Josh Charters, has refused to remove the Pledge despite it being proved, many times over, to be palpably false.

Page last updated: Friday 29th March, 2024 at 2355 hours

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