Tape conversations with Hackney council or go to jail

A man only escaped being jailed last month because he had recorded conversations with a Hackney council social worker who had accused him of assault, criminal damage and making threats to kill.

According to The Voice a judge threw out allegations made against Hackney resident Lovel Brian Dennis who had been trying to win custody of his brother Kenny.

The voice said: "Hackney Council reportedly offered Dennis an apology and a total of £1,600 compensation, but said in a statement: ‘The Council will be making no comment due to legal reasons."

Remember last year Hackney council attempted to prevent the Hackney Citizen from publishing a recording of a council employee who said there wasn't a Conservative Party mayoral candidate standing in Hackney.

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.

Credit Union and Citizen vs Council

Hackney Credit Union closure is discussed at length in the comment section of this blog post: Hackney Credit Union suspended on Paul Stott's I intend to escape...and come back.

Including such highlights as: "There are rumours of this being precipitated by £100,000 or some such sum going walkies. If there's any truth in that (not saying there is) it's likely to mean people have to wait even longer to get their money back"... and "Who has taken our money from what was in essence an empty charity-shop incredibly licensed to take people's deposits? Who was running this apparent 'ponzi scheme' openly operating on our high street? And who allowed them to prey on investors?"

On Thursday the Hackney Gazette suggested a less extreme scenario saying HCU "collapsed after its running costs outstripped money coming in with more and more people unable to repay loans."

The paper also reported concerns that the HCU collapse would cause a resurgence in loan sharks.

Commentators on I Intend to Escape didn't hold back on council bashing but the top prize for this goes to a guest spot on Hackney Citizen from Jack of Kent: "The improper and disgraceful conduct of Hackney Council" which exposes the council's daft threats against the Citizen as well as its failure to inform the Citizen that it had no intention of pursuing the issue any further.

Jack of Kent picks the council's legal arguments to pieces but could the catalyst for the council's course of action have come from its communications department? In comparison to its well-oiled and fully staffed comms team, the legal department is a Cinderella. (also see Hackney Legal department's recruiting crisis confirmed) and the council's claim that it was defending a junior member of staff looks more like an excuse to bully a critic (one that the Mayor happened to have publicly attacked)... meanwhile the legal team seems to fire wherever it is pointed.

Cops turn to blogosphere/Diane favourite

The Daily Mail says: "Left-wing firebrand Diane Abbott has sensationally topped the first major opinion poll since her shock entrance into the Labour leadership race." However the best odds you can get on Diane winning are 25 to 1 and she's still fifth behind Ed Balls, the Milibands, and Andy Burnham, according to Paddy Power and the odds are even wider at other bookmakers, according to oddschecker.com.
Tottenham MP David Lamy said he had nominated her yesterday but his nomination has yet to be registered on the Labour Party website.

COPS TURN TO BLOGOSPHERE

The police sent out a statement earlier today (Tuesday) calling for witnesses after the London Fields shooting. No doubt it went to lots of media organisations (Hackney Hive published it hours ago) but it is the first statement the police have ever sent to Blood and Property unprompted. Could the inclusion of Hackney bloggers in police witness appeals be due to the online response to stories on Hackney Hive (29 comments) and Hackney Citizen (32 comments) following the incident - many of the posts by people who were clearly witnesses?


DS Steve Desmond from Trident said: "We need to hear from witnesses who may have seen people armed with weapons. Anyone with information are asked to call Crimestoppers anonymously 0800 555 111.

Hackney PR disaster

One of the less terrifying entries on this spiky conversation about law on Stokey Talk provided a link to Private Eye's defence of the Hackney Citizen.

If you have a look you'll notice that Private Eye has published the conversations that Hackney Council is trying to censor - an issue which is discussed in Journalism.co.uk.

What is Private Eye's circulation? About 250,000? Is this what Hackney Council might call a PR disaster?

Is Jules Pipe behind legal feud with "lying little rag"?

The Hackney Citizen's decision not to buckle to Hackney Council's legal threats over a telephone conversation posted on its website has been reported by Journalism.co.uk.

Hackney Council told Journalism.co.uk that it was concerned about how the recording was made. Hackney Citizen replied: "We take the view that it is in the public interest to disclose the way the Council was dealing with the issue, as evidenced by the audio clips."

The last time the Citizen clashed with the council was when it reported an alleged £40m hole in the council's budget. This, combined with Lib Dem criticism of Hackney Today (the council's free newspaper) prompted Mayor Jules Pipe to publicly attack the Hackney Citizen in a full council meeting in which he called it a "lying little rag".

Could Pipe's wrath have had anything to do with the Citizen's apparent alliance with Pipe's mayoral rival, Andrew Boff? Keith Magnum, founder and editor of Hackney Citizen - and former Green Party candidate - told Blood and Property that this appearance was just a coincidence: Hackney Citizen: Boff-tastic or intelligence wing of the Green Party?

Hackney Citizen's grand design

I was ensnared by the Hackney Citizen's general election debate late last night. I don't know what I was expecting but I only aimed to look at it for a maximum of 10 mins. May be an hour later I found myself composing a comment (by then it was 1.30am) which I then posted by accident - and then had to post again to dig myself out of a hole.

But the Hackney Citizen (and Hackney Voice) project is worth a look. There's an impressive response rate from candidates but the real story might be in who didn't answer what questions.

Hackney Citizen: Boff-tastic or intelligence wing of the Green Party?

Keith Magnum, founder of the Hackney Citizen, confesses that the paper's website looks a bit "Boff-tastic" at the moment. It's full of the various gripes of the Conservative Mayoral candidate, Andrew Boff.

This is odd considering Magnum stood as a Green Party candidate in Clissold in the last election (2006). What's doubly odd is that there is no Mischa Borris, the Green Party Mayoral candidate, in the paper's who's who for the Hackney Mayoral race.

I hoped this could mean one of two things. Either the Boff interest was a double bluff and Magnum was master-minding - in his own words - "the intelligence wing of the Green Party" or hated his former colleagues at the Green Party so much he'd turned to the Conservatives.

But Magnum said neither interpretation was correct: "I left the Green Party. I left because I didn't think being a member of a local party would be compatible with what I'm doing now. I'm still friendly with them but I'm not involved in it."

Apparently the lack of Green stories is because the Green launch has come a bit later than the others. "We're not avoiding them... I've known them for ages and I still speak to them. But it's not like this is the intelligence wing of the Green Party, they don't know anything before it gets published."

So, what's with all the Boff coverage - as opposed to the lack of Borris coverage ? "We've done stuff with Andrew Boff just because it's interesting." He said Boff had approached them with his story about the council refusing to print his election address.

Magnum - who has no background in journalism (I failed to ask him what his professional background was) - said "Hackney Council rejects mayoral candidates election address" was a "brilliant story" but hard to substantiate, which was probably a pop at the Hackney Press office which took its time confirming Boff's story.

Magnum says: "When I look at our homepage, it does look a bit Boff-tastic, but he's just given us the best stories." As an antidote he says Boff might have slightly brought the problem on himself by not attending relevant meetings and leaving it all to the last minute.

In contrast Magnum says the Greens have provided press releases about more money for pensioners which, while worthy, are unlikely to prompt the kind of reactions that Boff's problems have - lots of comments can be found at the end of the story.

HACKNEY GAZETTE:

Otherwise, has the Hackney Citizen overtaken the Hackney Gazette as the borough's main newspaper? While Magnum can point to a print run of 20,000 free newspapers, a statistician might balk at comparing this to the Gazette's weekly 8,000 sold newspapers. But according to Magnum his 20,000 probably means a readership of around 60,000.

Compared to the Gazette's full time editorial staff of 7 - four reporters, news editor, deputy editor, editor (that doesn't include sport, advertising or circulation) the Hackney Citizen doesn't have any paid staff. According to Magnum, the advertising revenue goes back into the circulation.

Meanwhile Magnum says he's watching for any web activity from Archant which owns the Gazette. He says the privately owned newspaper group has upgraded some of its local news sites.