Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council credit card spend mystery - FOI request ignored?
Daily Telegraph has reported on council credit card spend with some truely spectacular luxury spending from some. Trips abroad being a classic one. Link
You'll be surprised to hear that our very own Haringey Council has not provided data for the FOI request, so we can only speculate ... whether they have something to hide
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Nice to see that people who post on HoL are not the only pedants in Haringey. Purchasing card indeed. Alan you're normally so condescending when it comes to obfuscation by others. Do you not think they could have helpfully responded with something more constructive than "nil"?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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John, were the Haringey F.o.I team guilty of pedantry or obfuscation? Not if you read this helpful and informative discussion thread on HoL. Far more informative - it seemed to me - than the Daily Telegraph article."The aim of the Freedom of Information Act is to make information available to the general public."Those are not my words but from the website of the Information Commissioner (ICO). And in my view, F.o.I staff are not there to provide a research service for national newspapers. Nor to offer advice to professional journalists about rephrasing their questions more clearly. The ICO site already gives this advice with clear examples..(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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You have interpreted that aim very narrowly. I would expect councils to be rushing to make everything they can available. Information WANTS to be free.
If you don't think that this is an example of pedantry with regard to what kind of card is being used and obfuscation with regard to it being something I had to look up on Wikipedia then we're on a very different page.
Telegraph FOI request comes in to the Haringey finance department via the "information hiding department". It filters up to management who gleefully respond "we don't use credit cards!" and send a semi-polite F-off to the Telegraph thinking that they're really clever and avoided that one.
F.O.I. staff should be publishing every scrap of information they can. It's blimmin free now. What are they so scared of? That they'll be out of a job?
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Yes, guess you could say that a purchasing card & a credit card are pretty much the same thing. At the end of the day they are both used to spend money! Telegraph were caught out by that easy brush off.
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No, Haringey were caught out. The Telegraph's agenda is met more fully by a failure to disclose.
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John, you didn’t need to look up Purchasing Card on Wikepedia. Inkjet Pack's comment here and Michael Anderson's here had already explained the difference on this thread. Inkjetpack gave us a link to a website with the general information.
Otherwise, your comments seem one unfounded assertion after another. For example, unless you have a mole' there, neither of us has any evidence whether managers in the Finance Service were "gleeful" about this request and gave the Telegraph an F-off.
For what it's worth, my speculation would be that managers are unlikely to be focussed on the Daily Telegraph and its F.o.I. My guess is that their jobs and mortgages might be a higher priority. And perhaps whether their kids will even have paid jobs in future.
And I haven't interpreted anything, John. All the lurid interpretation was done by the Daily Telegraph which carried the headline and opening paragraph:
Councils spend £100m on taxpayer-funded credit cards.
" . . . with local authority executives and councillors treating themselves to first-class travel to foreign destinations and stays in five-star hotels."
Is it too much to suggest the Telegraph implied the entire £100m was for wasteful luxury? And used the term "credit card" to imply irresponsible & unchecked spending?
Eric Pickles seemed to think so. He is quoted saying that the spending was “wild”; and "It appears that for years, some councils have been enjoying the high life paid for by you and me." Here's the link.
As for Information being "blimmin free now". No it isn't. The marginal cost of copying electronically stored information may be falling to zero - but the cost of the computers, buildings, phone lines etc has not. Nor are the staff answering F.o.I questions volunteers and neither should they be.
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Why are staff "answering" FOI requests? Surely the information bill, which Tony Blair probably detests purely for the work it has caused public bodies, is that information wants to be free? Why are they not just conducting their accounting on a publicly accessible system or at least providing a view of it to the public?
I agree that the Telegraph were on a mission to make Haringey et al look like scallywags ripping off the public purse. Haringey helped them in that respect with their too-clever-by-half response. As far as I have been able to make out from the expenses published thus far they are careful and modest about their spending. In fact modest to the point of lacking in self esteem.
For the record, I said that publishing information is free <- I just did it here.
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So I am now informed as to your opinion, John, You are "free" to do this - within legal constraints. You make the opinion freely available i.e. without charging for your time. Though it's not quite cost free as, for both of us, there is a real - though relatively low - price to pay for equipment we use, utility bills etc.
The process of gathering and recording data; processing it into information; and building knowledge, is not yet done by Government and local government organisations on the Wikipedia model. Nor is that model feasible just yet, as a means to manage homes, build and run schools, mend roads etc.
Of course, next January it's possible that the Big Society will finally take off. After David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and all their friends and contacts select News from Nowhere; Proudhon and Kropotkin, as Christmas presents for one another. And then give away all their money and property.
Perhaps you're saying, John, that no further Freedom of Information Act questions would need asking or answering if every single piece of data for every Government Department and local Council was automatically available for download at no charge?
Except that this would pose issues of personal data protection; and of commercial confidentiality. It also ignores the point that data is not the same as information.
Many years ago, in a far away borough where I worked, a keen young councillor became a committee chair and insisted on being properly briefed on all his responsibilities. After some fruitless nagging, he complained to the Director. Who ordered his staff: "Give this man all the information he requests."
A van arrived at his home. Box after box, with file after file was carried in. "Do let us know," they said, "if there's anything else you need." He never did.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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" This is causing us and other LAs [Local Authorities] some difficulty in that we rely on historical data from the banks and they are unable to meet the current demand from LAs "
Is Mr Crompton saying that Local Authorities do not keep their own records of expenditure using purchasing cards ?
We have a purchasing card which operates on much more stringent lines that a credit card.
How stringent can these lines be if the LA has to ask the bank how much has been spent, and on what ?
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Fair points, John. Unless you'd like to do it, I'm happy to email Mr Crompton and ask him.
Please let me know.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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I don't see why it should always be you who sticks his head above the parapet. I'll do it but could you PM me his e-mail? i can't find him on the Haringey website.
Cancel that - it helps in the search if I spell his name correctly :-)
Done
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Permalink Reply by Dave on
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Mr Crompton's reply is indeed very carefully worded but, not so much so that you've ended up masterfully pointing out the holes in it John. Thank you for pursuing things further.
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