Main Street WR10 3HS )
Parkwood WR10 3HT ) FRIDAYS
Hill Lane North side WR10 3HU )

Park Cottage and WR10 3HU ) WEDNESDAYS!!
Hill Lane South side )

How bizarre!
Some mistake surely?
The young man at WDC told me that it all depends not on reason but on our postcode.

Why would the Council subsidize the marketing activity of these private businesses by delivering their leaflets free of charge and implicity endorsing them as preferred suppliers ?

(of course, being an old cynic I suspect that somebody, somewhere is now enjoying the contents of a nice fat brown envelope, or that a spate of digging at Companies House might reveal some poorly disguised connection between the shareholders or directors of these companies and somebody in the Council.)

I raised this point with the Council and the answer was:

“…we did ask the question in the expression of interest form. Not one of the businesses offered to make a financial contribution using their high set up costs as there (sic) excuse.”

So there we have it: Nobody “volunteered” to pay them anything, so they did it anyway for free.

Makes you wonder about the negotiating skills used to get best value for money from the suppliers they deal with !

In addition to the light bulbs and batteries, I also wonder about what does one do with needles or bent/rusty nails, pins (of all sorts) etc – do we bury them in the garden ? – as clearly our forebears did, judging by what can be turned up when digging ! I take it no-one could imagine it was in any sense ‘green’ for each of us to drive e.g. to Throckmorton with a tiny packet of such objects.

Our wheelie bins were delivered this morning. We opted for the smaller size of each, which is why we had not had them earlier, but even so, Richard was a trifle dismayed to see how large they are. So, I can now tell you that whereas Hill Lane black bags and the green boxes for bottles have been collected on a Wednesday (yes, that meant the bottle collection was done on two consecutive days in this little village …), our wheelie bins will be emptied on a Friday as you tell us the Parkwood ones will be, which makes it seem even more bizarre that your house, which is essentially on the corner of Hill Lane and Parkwood, will have its bins emptied on a Wednesday. Do you know when they will collect from the cottage which adjoins yours ? – presumably he is in Hill Lane ? Both Richard and I find it very hard to understand the ‘green-ness’ of coming more than once each week to this village for the same categories of waste. When I have queried the rationale for the current collection schedule over two days, the nice ladies at the desk in the Council offices have told me that the routes have all carefully been worked out as being the most efficient and I’ve no doubt we’d get exactly the same response were we to ask about this new collection schedule. But I must say it would be nice to see the details of the argument, since the perceptions of anyone in the village I’ve ever spoken to, are that it doesn’t make sense – and the perceptions of the public are important if you want to persuade them that the whole scheme is worthwhile and they should be making the best effort they can to make it work.

I am a little concerned by the prices quoted for biodegradable bin liners which are hugely more than those for the sorts of liners I currently get. Though I could afford the new sort, I fear that there will certainly be others, not least some of the older pensioners, who may find it more difficult. But perhaps when this is the only sort of liner that anyone is going to buy, manufacturers and retailers may start reducing the price. However, I seem to remember when I was working in London that I found biodegradable sacks that were nothing like as expensive – I’ll have to look around !

Like you, I do certainly do feel that it is extremely important that we all manage our waste a great deal better that we have been doing in at least the past few decades and so I want this to work and for everyone to get into a comfortable routine about what to do. I’m sure it will all settle down, but certainly as it starts up, I’m sure the ability for anyone interested to exchange views and experiences in a positive spirit of wanting to make things work is very valuable.

Mary

I would of course be a lot more convinced on the sincerity of your comments if the up to date register of Councillors interests was published on the Wychavon website. (As it is on the Worcester County Council website)

As you said earlier:

“… because the information is all freely available anyway on the website, which is the first port of call for us to keep the public informed.”

Perhaps the first port of call to keep the public informed about the things that you want to tell them.

The things that you would rather hide away are conspicous by their absence and require a special trip or a written application to the Civic Centre or in some cases a Freedom of Information Request.

If a website is the best way to make information publicly available (which it is) why is the information about Councillors interests not published on the website ?

If it is really so easy to pop down to the Civic Centre every time we want to find something out, why are you wasting taxpayers money on a website that is clearly not needed ?

Only a politician could try to justify two such contradictory positions simultaneously !

Regards,

James

I am just as concerned about my Register of Interests, which is done directly by me as my obligation as a councillor, and it can be viewed by anyone on request by going to the Civic Centre and asking. It is a very different matter for this to be published on a private website and left unaltered by the editor because it is my responsibility to keep it up to date at Wychavon and add or remove those items that I may have or no longer have an interest in, and so that anyone wishing to inspect it will have the true picture at any given time. The publication on your website is not the official version, is currently out of date and therefore it is incorrect. It is for this reason that you were asked to remove it, not to be difficult or trying to hide anything, but to make sure that the truth is represented, not someone elses version of it.

Regards,
Anna

This is the actual correspondence where the Council stopped the publication of your register of interests by the use of copyright law, after I had amended the document to remove your signature.

From: James Hickman [mailto:james@plumbworld.co.uk]
Sent: 09 February 2008 10:15
To: Marshall, Ian
Cc: Anna (Internet) Mackison
Subject: RE: Information Request

Dear Mr Marshall,

Thank you for your letter, received by email today.

I do appreciate the issue concerning identity theft and have obscured the signature on the register of interests document today.

I was under the impression that a councillor’s register of interests was a document of public record, and that I did not require either the Council’s consent or Mrs. Mackison’s consent to publish it on my website. If this is not correct please advise me and I will, of course, remove the whole register from the site immediately.

With all the current political scandal and calls for more openness in the financial affairs of public officials, e.g.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7219040.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7219292.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7228020.stm

many local councils actually publish these registers on their own websites, perhaps this is something that Wychavon might consider?

I assume that individual councillors will resist , but it is surely in the interests of open and accountable government? There will always be a suspicion, however unfounded, that if Councillors make it more difficult to access this information then they must have something to hide !

Personally, I am against identity cards, CCTV surveillance and the descent into an ever more Orwellian world where the state demands the right to know everything about the private lives of its citizens. However, if that is the world that our public officials insist upon, then those who live by the sword must surely die by it !

(A big thank you to Councillor Mackison for resisting the latest demands to infringe what is left of our privacy by microchipping our dustbins http://wychavon.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/chips-in-bins-turned-down/ )

On the wider identity fraud issue I would like to point out a few things:

1) Perhaps the council should obliterate the signatures before sending such documents out in the first place. Any fraudster would simply be able to request their own copy of the document under the Councils publication scheme to get a copy. If the council is serious about identity theft prevention, then it really should get its own house in order !

2) The council should also consider obliterating Councillor Mackison’s signature from the documents they publish on their own website, such as the forward to the adopted plan for 2006
http://wychavon.whub.org.uk/home/wdc-planning-lp-local-plan-_for-web_.pdf

3) Finally, anyone in public office should consider signing up for a protective registration with CIFAS,
a. http://www.cifas.org.uk/default.asp?edit_id=565-85 , which offers first class protection against identity fraud.

Kind Regards,

James Hickman

The Reply I received was:

From: Marshall, Ian
To: James Hickman
Cc: Anna (Internet) Mackison
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 10:27 AM
Subject: RE: Information Request

Mr Hickman – Thank you for your response which is helpful. My view is that you do need consent to publish the register form on your website so I would be grateful if the whole register could now be removed.
You are correct that the practices of different Councils on this issue varies. However, at Wychavon, we decided not to publish the register forms & there is no legal requirement for this.
We are mindful that some published documents have included Members’ signatures & we do now intend to take steps to remove those signatures.
Ian Marshall

From: James Hickman [mailto:james@plumbworld.co.uk]
Sent: 11 February 2008 10:28
To: Marshall, Ian
Cc: Anna (Internet) Mackison
Subject: Re: Information Request

Thanks Ian,

if you can point me to the relevant statute or case law that underpins your view on the consent requirement I will remove the document today.

Regards,

James

From: Marshall, Ian
To: James Hickman
Cc: Anna (Internet) Mackison
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 10:57 AM
Subject: RE: Information Request

Mr Hickman – If you intend to reproduce any document, you should first get the permission of the owner ie the copyright holder. Disclosure of information under the Freedom of Information Act does not remove the copyright in it & therefore copyright restrictions must still be adhered to.
The law relating to copyright is governed by the Copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Ian Marshall

The Council is clearly not as willing to share information as you suggest.

This had nothing to do with copyright. There are some documents which are protected by copyright, e.g. the plans which accompany planning applications, which are all clearly stamped as being copyright without the agreement of the copyright holder – usually the architect.

The majority of District Council business is conducted in public with the public and press able to attend, e.g. Overview and Scrutiny, Executive Board, Full Council, Development Control meetings, Development Control Policy meetings, etc., etc.
Not only that, but they are advertised on the Wychavon Website together with the agenda, paperwork and minutes. Annual budgets and independent auditors reports are also available. There are categories of information which is not usually open to public scrutiny, such as tender documents with suppliers and sub-contractors which is usually commercially sensitive or those things covered by the Data Protection Act.

These days, I believe it is mostly unnecessary for anyone to use the Freedom of Information Act because the information is all freely available anyway on the website, which is the first port of call for us to keep the public informed. There is public scrutiny and there is open debate and opportunities for members of the public to come and ask questions at most meetings and receive a reply there and then. This situation has been the case throughout my terms of office.

I hope this helps to reassure you or anyone else that may not know this, that Wychavon is not a secret society, it is a publicly accountable body.

Regards,
Anna Mackison

not editorial spin, simply cutting to the key points that would be of general interest.

As you are fully aware, in the past the Council has threatened me with legal action for publishing complete word for word correspondence. (I think the last time was when you wanted to stop me publishing a copy of your entries from the register of Councillors’ interests !).

Unfortunately, to avoid this problem with copyright infringement it is necessary to extract the content and re-present it in my own words.

If you can arrange for the Council to provide a written undertaking that they won’t sue me for copyright infringement if I publish their documents or correspondence I will of course be happy to publish the actual documents and correspondence, on this and any future issues. This would be in the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and support public scrutiny and open debate, but I doubt that I will see such an undertaking any time soon !