Hackney Council only breaks the law 15% of the time?

Judging by the number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests being dealt with by Hackney Council it's not surprising there's a bit of a backlog. There have been 237 requests via Whatdotheyknow.com alone.

According to Hackney Council there were 883 requests over the 12 months up to September 2010 (assuming it relates to the date the request was made: September 2010.)

By it's own admission Hackney Council says people are interested in using the service. (The council said: "An increase (in FOI requests) in the lead up to national and local elections was expected, but has continued as a result of interest in the Council’s reaction to cuts in spending and as a result of increased awareness of the legislation. The number of complex requests also appears to be increasing.")

But is the council setting its targets illegally low when it comes to how long it takes to answer these FOI questions?

The council's performance has been improving but it has set itself a threshold allowing it fail to respond within the legal time limit in 15% of cases.

In an FOI request on Whatdotheyknow.com Jed Keenan asked: "I notice that the target for requests being replied to within the statutory standard of 20 working days is set at only 85% rather than the statutory standard of 100%. Is this because this is considered the minimum that this local authority is capable of achieving?"

The Council replied: "The council's target is to provide information requested under the Freedom of Information Act within 20 working days. 85% is the Council's minimum."

Keenan (who has been criticised for bombarding Hackney with FOI requests - currently 59) said that this response "seems to imply that the Council’s minimum target is to break the law only 15% of the time" as the FOI Act is legally binding.

Ultimate responsibility for FOI in Hackney lies with the borough's head of legal services, Gifty Edila. Hopefully she's got enough staff to check whether or not the council is acting within the law - unless of course they're busy doing other bits and pieces.

Hole in Council's economic analysis - Mayor in the Economist

Local authorities were supposed to have new Local Economic Assessments in place by April 2010. But the last time it was asked, Hackney Council said it hadn't got one, and wouldn't have one until August 2010.

(Meanwhile, Mayor Jules Pipe happily chats to the Economist about the borough's economic situation in the magazine's latest edition. Hackney residents should be getting jobs in coffee shops if they want to benefit from the Olympics. The Economist reports: "His (Jules Pipe's) main longer-term hope lies with the broadcasting and media centres in the Olympic Park. Hackney is home to lots of small firms in “creative” industries, from post-production work for Hollywood studios to printing and advertising, for which the media centre could become a new base. That in turn would spawn work in nearby coffee shops and so forth.")

The council received a Freedom of Information request for its draft Local Economic Assessment in February from Labour activist Jed Keenan.

The council's response was: "The Local Economic Assessment is a statutory duty placed on all local governments arising from the Local Government and Construction Act (2009). This requires each local authority to undertake a detailed study of the dynamics of the local economy and its connections with the sub-region and beyond.

"Due to difficulties in recruiting to the post of Policy Adviser - Social and Economic Affairs and subsequently the timings of data analysis being done at the sub-regional level there has been a delay in delivery. We are now looking at an interim report by the end of August 2010."

Jed Keenan told Blood and Property: "A decent economic idea would be a good idea for a £1,000,000,000/annum organisation but so what, exposure of the absence of a good idea makes no difference if the effectiveness of the governance doesn't make a good idea into a good set of actions." (Jed likes long complicated sentences!)

So what is the Local Economic Assessment? According to the Local Government Improvement and Development website the LEA should: "Provide local authorities and stakeholders with an understanding of how economic conditions and forces shape places. That understanding needs to inform: policy, priorities, resource allocation and actions."

It should: "Reflect the economic character of an area..."

It should: "Describe the economic forces and factors affecting your area to inform policy and action..."

All of which sound like they might be useful as the council faces 25% cuts and the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.

Meanwhile Keenan has been one of the few members of Hackney's Labour party to provide any scrutiny of the borough's leadership. This is usually done with a view to encouraging others to take part in the process: a recent exchange in the Hackney Citizen

In the Citizen and more recently in response to Cllr Louisa Thomson's piece in Progress about Community Organisers, Keenan has criticised the council's economic policy, particularly in relation to the borough's actions in relation to street markets.

In Progress he says that the 500 empty pitches in Hackney's street markets are "a black hole on the Council’s accounts but the corporate plan is to increase the charges of the existing traders by 50%."

He points out that: "There’s a proper big budget to spend but you can guess how that is to be spent, yep on municipal furniture, signage, branding, and more studies and consultations."

And he then threatens to take up David Cameron's offer to entrepreneurial locals: "So when the Tory Prime Minister says: ‘I want other forward-thinking, entrepreneurial, community-minded people and neighbourhoods in our country to come forward and ask for the same freedoms, the same support too. If you’ve got an idea to make life better, if you want to improve your local area, don’t just think about it – tell us what you want to do and we will try and give you the tools to make this happen.’ Do you think that he would order the Council to hand over governance of the Street Markets Section, currently insanely within the Parking Department, to me and the Traders Associations and social enterprises training and supporting tenants and residents of social housing to become market traders?"

Also, read Beecholme and Environs to find out how the Clapton Tramshed dispute is progressing. Has it already led to Labour figures such as Guy Nicholson and Ian Rathbone falling out? The piece also provides some interesting FOI material on the number of Hackney pupils forced to go to school in Waltham Forest due to a shortage of places in the borough. Will building even more homes help... may be there's some solid economic plan to underpin this? Something like a Local Economic Assessment....