Hole.
Digging.
Stop.
Rearrange those words and you get Tower Hamlets Council.
After being embarrassed by our ruling councillors’ use of taxis, the council is now using the Freedom of Information Act to prevent further full disclosures.
But as it’s Tower Hamlets, they’ve even managed to cock up the cover up.
A few weeks ago, the Tories submitted a request for details of all cab journeys booked by Mayor Lutfur Rahman, his councillors and his advisers between July 2012 and January just gone.
The final response was sent to Tory leader Peter Golds last week. It said:
The cab firm used for the bookings below was Com.Cabs. The journeys taken from July 2012 to 31st January 2013 are set out below.
Information provided in this response excludes a number of journeys (13) which are currently under dispute with the taxi firm.
The address details on a number of journeys are also provided by postcode only due to concerns regarding Health and Safety, and Section 38 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is applied.
This email acts as a refusal notice under the FOI Act in respect of this data.
Ah, that old Health and Safety chestnut.
Firstly, anyone familiar with the FoI Act will spot how inept this reply is. Section 38 is a qualified exemption and can only be used once it has been subject to a “public interest test” that weighs the pros and cons of disclosure/redaction. No details of this test have been provided, so it will be interesting to see how they justify the redactions.
Anyway, let’s look at the final reply.
Yet again, Cllr Rabina Khan, the cabinet member for regeneration who is paid £23,000 a year for her council duties and who complained loudly about being exposed last time round in March, is the most prolific cab user; many of them are between E1 and E14.
But what on earth are those addresses deemed so sensitive they jeopardise the health and safety of our precious councillors?
Er, well, “E14” in most of the cases is the town hall in Mulberry Place.
I’m not sure whose health and safety the council is trying to protect by keeping their presence at the HQ, but it surely can’t be theirs. Maybe the regime is now so toxic that the council’s overworked FoI department is worried about people knowing they work in the same building.
But how do we know “E14” is Mulberry Place?
Well, just a few days before it published that redacted information, officers uploaded the original, uncensored data onto the council’s own website.
Here are the details, so compare and contrast (I’ve redacted the precise location of councillors’ homes):
Those marked with my asterisk on the right of the pages are the ones in dispute. They include an alleged £32 trip by Cllr Rania Khan (the culture spokeswoman) from Mulberry Place to Victoria Park for the Olympics Opening Ceremony celebrations on July 27. So much for the council’s exhortations to avoid the roads during that time…
Another dispute concerns a £64 fare allegedly booked by Rabina Khan on September 21 from her house in Whitechapel to the Albert Jacob House council office one mile away in Roman Road. It included 30 minutes of waiting time. No wonder it’s being disputed.
However, one good piece of good news: no taxis at all were booked in December and January. Which just happened to coincide with the beginning of questions about their use….which just goes to show that scrutiny and transparency does work.
Cllr Peter Golds has complained to council boss Stephen Halsey about all this. He wants to know why the information was redacted so heavily…and whether there was any political interference.
Trial by Jeory 
Interesting that some of them are listed with specific “includes Wait Time”. Does this answer the question about why some eye-wateringly high fares have been charged (and listed on this blog)?
Totally agree about this being an abuse of FoI, both in spirit and wording of the legislation. Smacks very strongly of an inept cover-up.
Tim.
Its gets worse,
£64 for a one mile journey ???????
Someone is taking the p*** and by their arrogant behaviour they don’t care a damn about wasting public funds.
Before the Freedom of Information Act 2000 c.36 was passed in November 2000, but implemented on 1 January 2005, the public could ask their council questions.
The FOI Act does NOT remove the previous system of asking councils for information; it augments it. FOI is an *additional* extra complementary means of getting information. It is not the only means.
When the rogues cite the FOI Act to refuse you information ask the same request not to be handled as a FOI Act request.
Too much local authority bollocks is used to suppress information of legitimate importance to local residents who pay the council’s high salaries and running costs. Don’t let the rogues cheat you of your information. It is supposed to be YOUR council after all.
CC.
Is she married to a taxi driver ?
The public has a right to know how their money is being squandered.
Will the officer who published the original document be blamed, perhaps made to hand carve a gold statue of Sir Lutfer, with a nail file which will be placed outside the new town hall?
A gold statue funded by the Taxi companies ?
Will you invite Isabella to unveil it ?
Lutfer spends an awful lot time in Canary Wharf these days (anyone else noticed) !. Perhaps the Town Hall no longer can meet his needs for grand offices and expensive tastes – Perhaps an office in one Canada Square will better suit him and his band of .. well..erm “advisors” – must seem so unfair all them bankers jumping in/out of taxies, lavish offices, highly paid advisors seemly a disregard for the majority of the people living in the area. Oh wait a minute – sounds right up his street. Perhaps Canary Wharf Group will pay off the taxi bill?
A (dis)honourable mention also must be given to Ohid Ahmed for the 20th July. Not only does he take a cab to Parliament (from Oban Street) at 5pm, he then takes another cab at 6.15 to the Tower of London rather than slumming it with the rest of us on a 15-20 minute journey on the District or Circle Line straight through.
Which rather begs two other questions. One is, what is the ‘time’ column a reference to? Time of taking the cab or time of arrival or what? Because if it is time of taking the cab then leaving Oban Street at 5pm will mean that he barely has enough time to get to Parliament (at least a 40 min journey, probably longer in rush hour at 5pm) and get through security (from bitter experience you’re looking at 10 to 15 mins at least) and get to whatever meeting or reception he has to go to, before he has to leave to get the cab at 6.15. Hardly worth taxpayers money to get a cab to spend 15 to 20 minutes in a reception or meeting.
I also wonder how both journeys (especially the second one to the Tower) could have been done using ComCab. But that would require a whole other essay. I don’t use the service so I wonder: Is it possible to hail a black cab and get it charged to ComCab or can you only hail ComCab-labelled cars? Or do you have to ring a booking number (or get somebody else to do it from the central office) when you need a car? Or does it have to be arranged in advance in order to be approved and signed off in line with council procedures?
‘Snowman’ above refers to a new town hall. Is this a serious proposition? When Tower Hamlets’ most significant, historic civic building could be demolished? The 1929 London Fruit and Wool Exchange of Spitalfields Market, also the home of the WW2 ‘Mickey’s Shelter’, is still threatened with destruction – and it has taken SAVE Britain’s Heritage to step in and take this fight for East End heritage on, by now appealing to Maria Miller, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Why is Cheviot House, another superb civic building, also similarly not being protected and thus is for demolition and development?
Why doesn’t Mayor Rahman fight for the built heritage that survives here? The Exchange of Spitalfields Market is not a council property – although it did once have an interest: there was a Mayor’s Parlour and the Shelter was a Stepney Borough Public Shelter. Cheviot House also should not be sold to a developer or demolished, when a new Town Hall is required.
Also, can any residents reading this now help to save the London Fruit and Wool Exchange? Please lobby our MP, Rushanara Ali, also Mayor Rahman, John Biggs at the GLA and councillors across the board – it was a cross party decision on 31 May 2012 by our Strategic Development Committee Members, against the advice of the planning officers, that refused demolition. As with the recent decision at Hackney to save the Marquis of Lansdowne, where officers there recommended demolition, the destruction of heritage for “benefits” is disgraceful and must end.
Spitalfields Market is our Market, not the City’s – who have already demolished 60% of it for office developments. There are existing offices in the Exchange and yet they want to demolish it for new offices. How is planning working for Tower Hamlets’ heritage and the Market, and the whole borough, when this is happening? Please get involved (there are Facebook campaign pages to save the Exchange and Mickey’s Shelter, also for Cheviot House) – you can also find out more from SAVE’s website:
http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/
And by looking at their latest press release, which you can then use to get the word out and to lobby our local representatives: http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/docs/articles/lfwe_9th_may_press_release.pdf
Thank you Ted, and hopefully, you too can help in this last chance for the LFWE?