Mad Bureaucracy (15/06/14)

A reader has been in touch to say that her Freedom of Information request to North Lanarkshire Council has been denied because the details of her hourly rate of pay is 'personal' information under the Data Protection Act and cannot be published.

Now this sounds like bureaucracy gone mad to me and the kind of issue that ought to be brought to the attention of the local newspaper.

Because why should an employee of the Council have to go to all this trouble in the first place - why doesn't the Council just give her the information she wants and spare everybody a lot of time and hassle? 

After all the hourly rates of pay of different Council jobs is hardly a state secret and ought to be public information which was the basis of the successful FoI case against South Lanarkshire Council which went all the way to the UK Supreme Court.

Even more crazy is the fact that the reader is asking for information about her own job, she's not intending to publish the details more widely and while she could ask for the details to be provided by making a 'subject access' request under the Data Protection, any sensible person would ask why she would have to go to all that bother.

Why is the Council being so obstructive and unhelpful? 

NLC Feedback (25 May 2014)

A number of readers have been in touch with me over what they regard as obstructive behaviour by North Lanarkshire Council - in response to requests for pay information in years gone by.

All people have been asking the Council is to confirm the pay records for their own jobs, but for some reason the Council has chosen to be obstructive and is passing people from pillar to post - or in one case telling them their 'lawyers' would have to request these details.

Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in your life?

Unfortunately, councils do behave in this terribly unhelpful way from time to time and the way to respond is by being ever more reasonable - and by making a formal FoI request if necessary. 

The other thing to do is to poke fun at the bureaucratic mindset of the Council and the managers involved in giving their own employees the 'run around'.

I will draft a formal FoI request that people might like to send to North Lanarkshire if the situation does not improve, but if the workforce has to use legislation to access their own pay records that really will say something about the state of North Lanarkshire Council in 2014.   

Obstructive Behaviour (5 June 2014)

While I'm on the subject of councils behind awkward and unhelpful, here's a post from the blog site archive which explains an incident back in 2013 involving South Lanarkshire Council.

Which, I'm pleased to say, was resolved on an amicable basis but only after I let the Council know that I wouldn't accept its 'censorship' of the A4ES blog site lying down.

So the motto of the story is don't let people push you around - find a way of sharing your concerns more widely, by contacting a local newspaper perhaps or submitting a Freedom of Information request.

My only regret about the is particular incident involving South Lanarkshire is that I didn't get to visit the Carnegie Foundation in New York although who knows, maybe I'll get another chance one day!  

Victory for Free Speech (9 September 2013)

A kind reader has been in touch to confirm that South Lanarkshire Council has indeed lifted the 'block' on access to the Action 4 Equality Scotland blog site - from Council libraries.

Now this has to go down as a victory for freedom of speech because only a few days ago the Council was insisting that individual service users would have to make their own requests - which would then be 'considered'.  

But the Council has decided to do the sensible thing, perhaps because it didn't relish defending this policy to a wider audience - including CILIP (formerly the Libraries Association) and the Carnegie Foundation.

In any event I'm very pleased that library users in South Lanarkshire are now able to access the Action 4 Equality Scotland blog site - without these petty minded and bureaucratic restrictions. 

The good news is that I'm planning to write a book about the fight for equal pay in Scotland - and I hope I can now count on the library service in South Lanarkshire Council to be among the first to order a copy.

Let There Be Light (8 September 2013)

I have been in correspondence with the chief executive of South Lanarkshire Council - Lindsay Freeland - in recent days over internet access to the Action 4 Equality Scotland (A4ES) blog site.

Now I could never see any valid reason for blocking or restricting access to the A4ES blog in the Council's various public libraries - some of which are famous 'Carnegie Libraries', of course, established with the help of the great Scottish philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie. 

So, I asked South Lanarkshire to change its current policy and live up to the famous words inscribed on the world's first Carnegie Library in Dunfermline -'Let there be light' - as far as access to the A4ES is concerned at least. 

And I'm pleased to announce that South Lanarkshire appears to have had a major re-think on the issue - because the block on the A4ES blog site is in the process of being removed, or so I've just been told.

Although I'd be grateful for confirmation from one of the blog site's many readers in that part of the world - just to make sure the Council lives up to its word, if you know what I mean. 

Dear Mr Freeland

A4ES Blog Site

Thank you for your letter dated 3 September 2013.

In my view the policy that is being operated by South Lanarkshire Council is outdated and completely unreasonable because 'blogs' are an everyday feature of public life these days. The BBC has hundreds of blogs on its web site, for example. Many national newspapers (UK and Scottish) have regular and guest blogs, from both new and well-known writers, and even local newspapers in South Lanarkshire have their own Facebook page.

So, I would ask South Lanarkshire Council to remove the current block on the A4ES blog site without delay, as I believe this to be an unjustified restriction on people's right to access public information freely, without let or hindrance, including, for example, comment and analysis on the Council's recent unsuccessful FOI appeal to the UK Supreme Court.  

To my mind the Council's current policy does amount to censorship and I believe it is unacceptable that public money should be used in this way. 

I hope you will agree to my request because there is nothing on the A4ES blog to object to - on the part of any reasonable person or organisation at least. 

If the Council is not prepared to agree to my request my next port of call will be the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals(CILIP - formerly the Libraries Association) and the Carnegie Foundation which, I understand, is based in New York.

I look forward to your reply.

Mark Irvine      

Subject: RE: A4ES Blog Site

Dear Mr Irvine,

I refer to your email of 29 August 2013 regarding the above and your subsequent email of 3 September 2013, and write to clarify the matter.

The Council’s published standard for responses to all enquiries, including emails, is 10 working days and this response meets that standard.

I can assure you that the Action 4 Equality Scotland blog site has not been placed on a restricted list or “singled out for treatment”. In fact, the default position of our computer systems, operating through RM Safety Net Plus, is that all blogs and social media sites are blocked. I understand that is common across many local authorities and other public sector organisations, though the degree of filtering varies depending on the system used.

However, if a library user makes a request for a particular blog or social media site to be unblocked, that will be considered.

When a site is currently blocked, a message appears on screen which reads “this site is filtered”, together with a contact link to make an enquiry about it. Requests to unblock are considered by our library service IT section. Decisions are taken on the suitability of allowing access to the site based on visual content, language etc.

I am not aware of any request to unblock the Action 4 Equality Scotland blog by any library user.  I can assure you that if any request was made to unblock the site, it would be unblocked.

I trust the above information clarifies the matter.

Yours sincerely,

Lindsay Freeland

Chief Executive

  

Dear Mr Freeland

A4ES Blog Site

I have been contacted by a number of people living in the South Lanarkshire Council area who visit and read the Action 4 Equality Scotland (A4ES) blog site on a regular basis.

I am told by these individuals that they cannot access the blog site via South Lanarkshire Council's Libraries Service because the A4ES site seems to have been placed on a restricted list which is very strange since the site can be accessed in the normal way, via an internet connection, and without any restriction from people's homes and other non-Council premises.

So, there appears to have been some kind of 'block' placed on the blog site either from within South Lanarkshire Council or perhaps, more specifically, from within the Libraries Service which I find rather disturbing because it suggests that someone within the Council is interfering with people's right to freely access public information, as well as my own right to freedom of speech.

South Lanarkshire has two famous 'Carnegie Libraries' within the Council's boundaries, in Rutherglen and Hamilton, which were founded with the support of the great Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and the first Carnegie Library in the world, in Dunfermline, has the inspiring words 'Let there be light' inscribed at the entrance to the building.

Carnegie Libraries were established for the purpose of supporting education, encouraging enquiry and broadening people's around the world, but these high ideals are hardly consistent with restricting access to the A4ES blog site even though I may, from time to time, have some critical things to say about South Lanarkshire Council.

Because I am not alone, as you know, with the UK Supreme Court having some very harsh words for the Council recently in relation to Freedom of Information, and so I am sure you will understand my concern that the A4ES blog site appears to have been singled out for such treatment which looks, to me, very much like heavy-handed censorship.  
     

As the Head of the Paid Service in South Lanarkshire Council, I would be grateful if you could investigate the matter and report back to me, as a matter of urgency.

Kind regards

Mark Irvine