Council failed to monitor key aspect of Groves traffic scheme

After several attempts, responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests have confirmed that the Council had not established key base line data measurements before implementing The Groves traffic ban in the summer.

Although never formalised, those favouring the changes argued that rerouting “through traffic” onto neighbouring roads would;

improve air quality
reduce traffic levels and thereby accident numbers
make the area “quieter”
encourage cycling/walking
utilise time limited central government funding grants

At the time of the decision to press ahead with the scheme (June 2020), the area had been virtually traffic free for 3 months because of the lockdown restrictions.

One of the consequences of lower economic activity has been greatly reduced pollution levels during 2020. The table below shows the current situation.

No noise measurements have been published, for streets within The Groves area, by the Council.

A response to an FOI request a few months ago revealed that accident levels have been very low within The Groves area during the last 3 years.

The Council has admitted that it doesn’t have any base line air quality measurements for the streets within The Groves area. Nor, apparently, is it monitoring current pollutions levels there (although, like the rest of the City, these are likely to be very low – see above).

The Council is also being very coy about what traffic volume information it holds. Traffic flow information for 2019 – when the plans were first discussed – should, in our view, have been published.

Similar benchmark information for June 2020 (post pandemic) should also have been published to inform decisions at that time.

Such figures as have been made public concentrate on the capacity of the nearby diversionary routes.

The Council is refusing to release information about movements within the Groves area raising, at least, a suspicion that it hadn’t completed counts. It now says that it will release information in June 2021.

The most concerning aspect of this whole process has been the lack of any safety audits. The Council has promised that a stage 3 audit will be completed. But it doesn’t say when.

In the meantime the hazards – particularly for cyclists – remain and will grow as movements return to more normal patterns.

Unsegregated contraflow cycle routes represent a safety risk

We could use the FOI appeal processes to try to force the Council to publish the details it holds on internal modal travel patterns for the periods before the traffic ban was introduced.

It would have no practical effect unless backbench Councillors were prepared to challenge the system. This they don’t seem to be prepared to do.

We must just hope that some of the more perverse aspects of the scheme don’t lead to more avoidable accidents during the run up to next years review.

No rent paid for 5 years on Container Village

According to a local community blog published in Brixton, London, the local version of the “container village” hasn’t paid any rent to the Lambeth Council for 5 years.

“Pop Brixton” was used as a paradigm when the York Spark owners were trying to persuade the York Council and its planning committee that siting shipping containers in a conservation area was a good idea.

Like Brixton, the operators offered to rent the Piccadilly site from the Council and to share in the ventures profits.

An FOI response to the “Brixton Buzz“ has revealed that a similar deal there produced no income for the local authority.

Now, like in York, monthly rental payments are being sought by Lambeth Council.

A Freedom of Information request was submitted to the York Council on 25th August asking the authority to confirm that the terms of a new lease – agreed in February – have been fulfilled by the site occupiers.

Spark operated on a “tenancy at will” basis earlier in the summer following its closure during the health crisis. Its original lease expired on 1st July 2020

Information requests 2000+ a year & increasing at York Council

The number of requests for information sent to the York Council last year hit a record high.

2068 Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environment Information Regulation (EIR) requests were lodged with the Council.

The applications were submitted using several different methods.

Some were simply Emailed to the Councils dedicated FOI email address (foi@york.gov.uk.) Such requests generated an automatic receipt.

Others used the independent web site “What do they know”. The monitoring of applications made from this site are semi automatic.

The Council also has its own “on line” recording system. This can be used by clicking this link At the moment this system, unlike “what do they know”, doesn’t provide users with a copy of their request nor does it produce a receipt even if a contact email address is provided. Users must make a note of a reference number which briefly appears on screen.

The Council claims that last year it answered 91% of requests for information within the target 20-day turn-round time.

Many of the requests do generate a further review as the Council fails to fully, or even partially, answer the information requests.

We think that if the Council was more open in its processes the cost of dealing with ad hoc requests for information would be greatly reduced.

NB. There has been no response from the York Council to a request for an explanation of why it ceased updating its FOI response lists last summer.

Over £576,000 owed in rates by York businesses

So which firms owe the York Council money?

It has taken long time, but we now know which companies haven’t paid their NNDR (business rates) in York during the last 3 years.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, the Council has listed 138 traders who have arrears of over £100.

Some have gone into administration while others have decided to repay debts gradually. In some cases, the bailiffs are being sent in

…and it must be said that no business is guaranteed to be a success. Times change, tastes vary and sometimes business do go under. Propriators can be taken ill, some even die.

That is the way life works so there will always be some bad debt.

….. but the total outstanding debt is now over £576,803 and other taxpayers must make up that deficit if public services are to be maintained.

So it is also important that lists of long term debtors are made public.

This allows residents to provide information on the whereabouts of business people and taxpayers who may have absconded. For many years the York Council did this routinely with some useful leads providing a way for money to be reclaimed from those who were seeking to evade their responsibilities.

In some cases, unscrupulous individuals were found to have amassed large arrears before going into administration and then setting up a new company with a similar name and providing much the same service. Often, they operated out of the same premises.

Now a new barrier to transparency has emerged.

The Council is refusing to divulge the names of companies where this may lead to an individual being identified. In some cases, these may be single traders operating under their own name.

The Council says, “some of the business names are names of individual’s and have been withheld as they are exempt under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act (2000), as they constitute personal information under the Data Protection Act (1998)”.

Hmm!

The names of some companies have, however, been revealed. This means that the names of their directors can be found simply be searching records at Company’s House (which can now be done “on line”)

The Councils position doesn’t entirely add up.

Debtor information like this was published as recently as 2013 by the Council.

They also take legal action to recover debts (essential before bailiffs can be used) and these preceding are not taken “in camera”. The information is in the public domain.

In this case we think that the public interest outweighs any right to anonymity and we will appeal against the Council’s refusal to provide the names of business owners.

In the meantime, the list of those debtors owing more than £100 is provided here.

No doubt the Councils finance department would appreciate any information about the whereabouts of any who may have absconded.

Freedom of Information: some excellent responses but others evasive

Let’s start with an example of good practice.

The York Council was asked, via the “What do they know” web site, for information on the numbers of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) issued for Fly tipping, Fly posting and graffiti. Similar information for other offences was already posted by the Authority on its open data website.

A response was provided within a few days with the Council agreeing to add information for fly tipping and flyposting to the Open Data website. This means that information will be updated regularly. The question about flyposting was prompted by an epidemic of “Fair” posters which appeared on the west of the City.

We look forward to the open data website being updated shortly

The York Council says that it does not hold statistics on the number of prosecutions for graffiti which have been undertaken. It points to the police as a potential source of information claiming that the force could extract graffiti cases from the more general “criminal damage” heading.

We have had less luck with North Yorkshire Police.

We have been attempting for over a year now to get speed and casualty information from them in an attempt to understand how it drives the deployment of their speed camera vans.

We wanted to see trend information for sites regularly monitored by the vans. We expected that management information would demonstrate that the mean/average speeds recorded showed a downward trend, that the number of vehicles exceeding the prevailing limit would be falling and that accident levels on the monitored roads would also be showing a downward trend.

The most recent report from the police indicates that they don’t hold any of this information nor have they tried to correlate the stats provided by NYFR when they deploy their speed monitoring equipment on road around the county.

We find it astonishing that objective results figures of this sort are not being regularly monitored by those managing the, very expensive, camera van programme.

Nor can the York Council bask in any glory. In February, we asked which businesses had not paid their NNDR (Rates) bills in each of the last 3 years.

The request was turned down on the, entirely specious, grounds that it might influence the result of a by election which was taking place last February. Eventually the Information Commissioner ruled that the information had to be released and it duly was on 26th September.

It revealed that the Council were chasing £576,803.04 in arrears that had accumulated over the last 3 years.

The response did not reveal the names of the businesses involved.

We asked for that information on 1st October but, as yet, we have had no reply.

Spark- FOI reveals email exchanges on planning, cladding and loans

The York Council has shed some light on what they told the Spark developers in the spring of this year.

Copies of Email exchanges have now been published on the “What do they know” web site. Click for details

As early as last April, York council officials knew that the developer was intending not to provide cladding on the external face of the containers. This would have breached planning conditions.

Spark was advised that they had to apply for a variation to the planning permission.

This they subsequently did but the application was refused.

Spark have since said that they will appeal against the refusal.

It also appears that the Council was aware that Spark were borrowing significant sums of money to fund the £500,000 set up costs for the development. It is unclear from the exchange whether the Council’s position as the land owner and preferential creditor was, and remains, fully indemnified.

At a meeting held in April, Spark were seeking an extension to the “June 2020 end date” for their lease. They were told that this was not possible, although one official hinted “if the venture is well supported and doing well then they (sic) maybe opportunities”.

Another Spark tenant (“Once across the Garden”) announced this week that they are moving from Spark.

NB. Spark started trading in May 2017 having, by then, been on site for over 6 months.

York Council wrong to turn down information request

Information Commissioner rules rates defaulter information must be made public

In a landmark ruling the Information Commissioner has said that the York Council acted improperly earlier in the year when it turned down a Freedom of Information request for a list of Business Rate debtors in the City.

The Council had said that it could not do so during the “purdah” period which precedes a Council election. It claimed that release of the information could “affect public support for a particular party”. In February 2018 – when the original request was lodged – a by election was taking place in the Holgate ward (although this would have been over before any information was likely to be published).

The withheld information in this case related to the value of individual unpaid business rate accounts and the associated recovery action planned or undertaken including any amounts of money that had been written off.

The Commissioner has now ordered the York Council to release the information within 35 days.

The information is unlikely to include any shocks. Debtor information was routinely reported publicly to a Council committee until recently. In some cases, it prompted inquiries which led to the recovery of the debt. A list of Business rate overpayments was also published prompting some businesses to claim a refund

Quite why this information was likely to influence a by election taking place in the Holgate Ward may remain a mystery. (Three of the four candidates there – at least – worked in the public sector and are highly unlikely to have had outstanding business rate debts).

This is, however, the second time that the Council has refused to divulge information quoting the Purdah restrictions. In 2017 they declined to say how many enquiries each individual Councillor on the authority had recorded during the previous year. The information was eventually supplied after the election campaigns of that year had concluded.

The Commissioners ruling therefore sets a precedent for how information requests must be treated by local Councils in the future.

FOI requests can only reveal facts. It will be for residents to judge whether those facts influence their actions.

If this includes their voting intentions, then so be it.

The full decision notice is being published on the ICO website https://ico.org.uk/

What to expect at Energise leisure centre – Freedom of Information response

A few weeks ago, several customers took to Facebook to vent their frustrations at the way that the Energise leisure centre on Cornlands Road had been run since GLL took over last December.

While, in the main, users speak highly of the staff – several of whom have been there for some years – failures in telephones and computers systems were highlighted.

There was a lack of variety in the programme with the centre seemingly reverting to be a sport only venue.

Energise performance report

It turned out that the Community Room had been blocked booked by one (Council funded) organisation for the whole of the working week (9:00am – 5:00pm), effectively excluding local older people who looked to the centre as an opportunity to socialise.

Some of the reasons for this strategy have become clear following a response to a recent Freedom of Information request.

It turns out that when the York Council decided to lease the centre to GLL they failed to include in the contract qualitative measures in respect of community activities .

In effect GLL must only meet admission number targets which are set at an annual increase of 1%. There are also some restrictions on the prices that can be charged to “walk up” customers and a minimum opening hours condition.

There is also a very comprehensive SLA in place which covers a range of safety and customer care measures. The Council promises that a performance report will be taken to the “Children’s, Education and Communities Scrutiny Committee” every 6 months (as with other external services: Explore, York Museums Trust, Make it York, etc).

Small wonder then that they are seeking to maximise the numbers passing through the entrance door.

However, Energise (now styled “Better”) was conceived as a Leisure centre and was intended to address the needs of all types of people living within walking distance of the facility. Hence the inclusion of a community room.

There is an expectation in the contract that the centre will work with other “partners”. However, so far, there seems to have been little effort made to integrate activities with those at the Acomb and Dringhouses libraries, with local community centres or residents associations.

Energise has, however, recently announced that they will be repeating the Family Triathlon event on 1^st September. But that is also a sports orientated activity.

GLL have not had much time to develop a community engagement strategy although they have been recruiting new staff as they go through a “bedding in” period.

We hope that they will come up with a community focused programme shortly which recognises that the local neighbourhood – which includes many single person households – should be able to regard the centre as their leisure opportunity of choice, irrespective of whether that involves participation sport.

Freedom of Information and the City of York Council

A year or so ago, the then new York Council Chief Executive promised a fresh approach to the amount of information on Public Services made available to York residents. Questions would be answered without the need to submit formal Freedom of Information requests to the Council. It would be unnecessary to refer many issues for determination by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO)

So how have things turned out.

The Council legally must respond to FOI requests within 20 working days

Many – but by no means all – requests for information are submitted via the “ What do they know” website https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/city_of_york_council

There is a mixed picture on response times

Responses to FOIs are (eventually) published on the Councils web site. https://www.york.gov.uk/info/20219/freedom_of_information/1535/freedom_of_information_responses But it can be a laborious business trailing through the list to find information.

Several recent responses do give reason for concern.

As long ago as last May 2017, a request for information about the number of public service reports registered by Councillors, was turned down. The Council claimed that this might influence voting intentions in last year’s General Election. The information was provided after the election had taken place (i.e. outside the so called “purdah” period). However, the grounds for rejecting the request were spurious and were referred to the Information Commissioners Office. The ICO said they were then powerless to intervene and declined to issue guidance to Local Authorities about how FOI requests could be reconciled with the Local Government Act 1986. That failure is now being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner.
Vacant garage problem

In January 2018 a request was submitted asking how many vacant Council owned garages there were in the City. It would take two months to get a partial response. Failure to advertise vacant garages for rent has lost the Council a significant amount of revenue in recent years.
On 11^th February the Council were asked to provide a list of Business Rate debtors in the City. This information has previously been published routinely in committee reports. The Council promptly turned down the request quoting “purdah” grounds (because a council by election was taking place in the Holgate ward four days later). The grounds for refusing that request have been referred to the ICO as it is unclear why the publication of, what could only have been a factual list, could possibly have favoured the chances of an election candidate (even if the Council had managed to respond in three days to the request).
The Council do publish some information about Coppergate fine levels. Numbers are much higher than was expected

More worrying is the failure to respond to a request made on 5^th January 2018 regarding the profile of those fined for flouting the access restrictions on Coppergate. The Council does publish the actual number of offenders but has, in addition, been asked to indicate whether the drivers concerned are local or visitors (from the postcodes of the fine notifications). This type of information was provided – albeit reluctantly – by the Council in 2014 when the original ANPR traffic camera scandal first peaked. Responses from the FOI staff suggest that the complainant should refer the issue to the ICO!
On 9^th March 2018 a request was made for information about the number of reports received by the Council about “damp” houses. No response has been received.

So, far from things getting better, the York Council has failed to even answer relatively simple enquiries on time.

Added to the highly selective nature of the stats quoted in many committee reports, it is difficult not to conclude that the Authority has something to hide and that it will do its utmost to frustrate those who seek transparency.

York Council – “We can’t tell you the facts because they might influence an election result”

Readers may recall an incident last year when the York Council refused Freedom of Information (FOI) requests in the run up to the General Election in June.They said the information might “influence how electors cast their ballots”.

They claimed, for example, that residents should not be told how many issues individual Councillors had raised with the Council on behalf of their constituents.

We pointed out that, as none of the Councillors were election candidates, this information couldn’t have influenced their chances.

It could be argued, in any event, that – as FOI requests can only be made for factual information – the more facts that are known, the more likely electors are to make an informed choice!

That issue is currently with the Parliamentary Ombudsman to investigate. That referral is on the basis that the Information Commissioner should have issued guidance to Local Authorities on what may, and what may not, be published.

Most Councils continue to respond to FOI requests during election (“purdah”) periods.

York is in a small minority that don’t.

Now a similar situation has arisen just 4 days before a Council by election takes place in the Holgate ward,.

The Council has refused to publish a list of businesses who have not paid their Rates bills during the last 3 years. This is information that used to be routinely reported to a public Council committee meeting. That committee might, on occasions, authorise some debts to be written off.

Quite why a list of businesses, with outstanding debts, could influence the way that the electors of Holgate will cast their ballot is open to conjecture.

It may make some people wonder if there something to hide?

Time will tell.