Ashley Parker DLGC letter 26 February 2015 and response 5 March 2015

Mr Ashley Parker

FOI Coordinator

Department of Local Government and Communities

GPO Box R1250

PERTH WA 6844

Your Ref. 27-15;E1506304

By email to ashley.parker@dlgc.wa.gov.au

Dear Mr Parker,

Freedom of Information Act 1992

Thank you for your letter of 26 February 2015.  I apologise for the delay in my reply.

I agree to your request to remove third party information from documents identified as relevant to my application. 

To expedite matters, I have decided for the present not to pursue items 14 and 15 of my application (dot points 6 and 7 in your letter of 12 February 2015).  Instead, I will in due course submit them, slightly revised, in a separate application.  Your having already identified many relevant documents should hasten the progress of that application.

I have no objection to your answering my application in stages.  It appears from your letter that your Department is ready to provide an immediate Notice of Decision regarding your dot points 3 and 5 (suspension / legal communication) in your letter of 12 February 2015. 

I note that you have proposed 30 April 2015 as the date for Notice of Decision regarding all three remaining categories (your dot points 1, 2 and 4).  Since I have considerably reduced the scope of my current application, I would hope that an earlier date might be possible. You will no doubt be familiar with the biblical aphorism ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick’ (Proverbs 13:12).

Yours sincerely

James Plumridge

(Dr) James Plumridge

Proposed letter to Mr Ashley Parker DLGC re FOI application 12 January 2015

Mr Ashley Parker

FOI Coordinator

Department of Local Government and Communities

GPO Box R1250

PERTH WA 6844

Your Ref. 27-15

By email to ashley.parker@dlgc.wa.gov.au

Dear Mr Parker,

Freedom of Information Act 1992

Thank you for your letter of 12 February 2015.

For item 15 of my application, the information I require could be summarised under the following categories:

1.                   In each year of the period under review, how many complaints as defined by item 15 were lodged with the Department.

2.                   In each year, how many of the complaints related to:

(a)   Enforcement of Acts and by-laws, including building and planning laws and regulations and those relating to the keeping of pet animals and livestock;

(b)  Conducting of Council meetings, including public question time;

(c)   Conduct of Shire Presidents;

(d)  Conduct of other individual councillors;

(e)   Conduct of the Shire CEO;

(f)    Conduct of other Shire employees;

(g)   Minutes of Shire meetings;

(h)  Shire finances, including credit card expenditure and expenditure on particular identified projects.

3.                   In how many instances the Department took action to resolve such complaints or assist the Shire in resolving them, and in those instances, generally what kinds of action it pursued.

I doubt a mere ‘count’ would provide me with the information required, but a moderate level of statistical analysis might.  However, I may apply separately at a later date for documents concerning specific categories and/or cases.

I agree to your request to extend the timeframe for the Department’s decision.  A further 10 working days should be sufficient, i.e. up to and including Thursday 6 March 2015.

Yours sincerely

James Plumridge

(Dr) James Plumridge

Freedom of Information FOI 27-15 - Folio 16 - Letter to Dr Plumridge seeking to reduce scope of application

Dear Blogmaster,

Please find attached a letter I have today received by email from Ashley Parker, FOI Coordinator, DLGC.

I shall be grateful if you will post the letter on the Perspicuus Eboracum site and the contents of this email on the regular site.

Mr Parker requests that I reduce the scope of my application.  He says that the task of assessing for exempt material the more than 850 documents so far identified 'would divert a substantial and unreasonable portion of the agency's resources away from its     other operations' (like stuffing up proposed amalgamations, I suppose).

He suggests I remove item 15 from my application. 

Item 15 is linked with item 14.  Together, they read as follows:

(14)           Complaints from ratepayers and residents of the Shire of York regarding conduct of Council meetings and other Council activities and processes, including administrative activities and processes, received by the Department since the present Council was elected in 2013;

(15)           For the purposes of comparison, complaints of that nature received by the Department during the years that Mr Tony Boyle and Cr Pat Hooper respectively held office as President of the York Shire Council.
It appears that 462 documents have so far been identified with respect to item 15.  Obviously, they form a significant proportion of the total (about 54%).

Readers intending to follow the fortunes of my application will have divined that item 15 was by no means a mere afterthought.  My purpose is to assess whether or not the Department dealt fairly or negligently with complaints defined by item 15, why it chose not to intervene in the council's affairs during the respective presidencies of Crs Hooper and Boyle, why it acted to suspend the council elected in October 2013 and if it then acted on ratepayer complaints or solely on complaints from disgruntled councillors and staff.

Before I reply to Mr Parker, I would welcome advice from any quarter as to what my next step should be.

Sincerely,

James Plumridge