Thank you for noticing the FOI issue. I work for North Tyneside and predict that even if the Council does provide answers to FOI requests they will be provided at the expence of local tax payers. It appears that they have no idea how handle writing and agreeing contracts. Reply
We’ve been raising this for some time. See page 15 of our submission to the Justice Committee’s review of FOI http://www.cfoi.org.uk/pdf/foipostlegscrutiny.pdf. We don’t believe that relying on every authority to insert an appropriate clause into every contract one at a time is likely to be effective. The FOI Act itself should state that all such contracts are deemed to include a wide disclosure requirement, automatically bringing information about the contractor’s performance within the Act’s scope. Reply
Thanks for that and (whoever left) the comment on youtube which directed me to this site. i raised a similar foi request with Barnet. Reply
Ron That was me on youtube. For those interested, it’s well worth watching the video from Barnet Alliance: Barnet Casino. It may be the future for all of us. Reply
There’s an interesting article on the outsourcing of Trading Standards in North Tyneside in the magazine of the Trading Standards Institute: Wake up and smell the austerity coffee [Link disabled because of possible malware on that website] Reply