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In It Together? Is ICO Incapable of Holding Certain Bodies to Account?

Introduction

This blog entry gives a glimpse into how The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) operates. ICO is charged with supervision of information rights in the UK and acting to assist when things go wrong.

Much anecdotal evidence suggests ICO may act to shield certain favoured organisations.

On 5.7.21 I contacted The Information Commissioner’s Office with a complaint. This stated:

For a civil hearing on 9.6.21 a copy of any criminal record regarding me was requested. CPS supplied erroneous data to the Court. The error was a serious and significant one… This is not only offensive but also a matter to cause exceptional damage within the hearing. Such [the retention and supply of incorrect data] being an exceptionally serious offence.

In 2019 I had been made aware that this incorrect offence was recorded against me and had requested a correction. It appears CPS [The Crown Prosecution Service] did not correct the error, as they admitted only after the hearing.

The incorrect data was supplied to The High Court sitting at Leeds County Court for a hearing on 9.6.21. This caused embarrassment, distress and actual loss.

CPS were informed of the error prior to the hearing. They failed to correct the record prior to the hearing and failed to inform the Court prior to the hearing also.

CPS did not correct the error for the hearing as the transcript of the hearing also shows: the matter of them providing incorrect data to the Court became a significant issue within the proceedings and I was left unable to prove that this record of this offence was wrong. Since the record however came from an official source the Court will have been inclined to believe it.

Accordingly I looked to ICO on this matter to enforce my right to be protected from the incompetence clearly shown by CPS on this matter and the effects that this has had on me.

I sought from ICO first a detailed ruling in relation to this matter that CPS has breached the law. I sought also that CPS should be subject of a fine or other action from ICO in relation to the significance of the error made. Especially when they failed to correct a prior record showing the data to be in error and failed to act to correct the record when informed of the error prior to proceedings.

Finally I required assistance from ICO to correct the records of CPS.
CPS have previously stated in 2019 that the error has been corrected only for it to be repeated again in June 2021: this shows that they cannot be trusted to hold correct data or act properly in line with their legal obligations. Spoiler alert: neither can ICO!

One thing in their credit it that CPS admitted to ICO the error in a letter sent to me. However account details a series of errors that should not have been made had CPS been compliant with and following the law.

CPS Legal Services claimed to ICO that the record was corrected with the Court. What they failed to state was that the record was only corrected a substantial time after the hearing had concluded. A data request to the Court showed this and caught CPS out. It might be thought that ICO would look more severely on this matter for this. They failed to even properly consider all of the data put in front of them.

This blog entry therefore details how and why ICO are unwilling or unable to hold CPS to account even in a situation in which there has been a clear and catastrophic data mishandling.

What Went Wrong

CPS failed to correct data held on me in error in 2019. ICO were aware of this matter at the time. Art. 16 of GDPR relates to the right to rectification. Data was held on me in error by CPS showing a supposed offence had been committed when in fact it had not. The nature of this offence was exceptionally serious and so the onus was on CPS to create and maintain correct records even more strongly than normal due to the exceptional damage such incorrect data could create if released to a third party. CPS previously claimed to have corrected the record in January 2019 but it subsequently emerged that this was not done, breaching my relevant rights (Article 16) and CPS’ legal obligations in the process.

In a matter at The High Court sitting at Leeds in June 2021 however a copy of this incorrect data on me was produced. I contacted CPS prior to the hearing to inform that an urgent correction was required. They failed to make this correction prior to the hearing. This amounts to an exceptionally serious data error and is the cause of loss and embarrassment.

On 5.7.21 I wrote to ICO and made the following complaint regarding CPS:

I refer also to the email to CPS in respect of their illegal retention of incorrect data on me and their sharing of this to third parties in June 2021.

A series of questions are asked of CPS in the email from me below of 3.8.21. I also request additional data from them. I exercise my Article 16 GDPR rights also. CPS’s response to this of 11.8.21 is to ignore all these matters and refuse further correspondence. I consider this to be the criminal office of attempting to conceal, destroy or hide data from disclosure.

The consequences of CPS getting an individual’s data wrong are serious, significant and occur more often than expected.


On 23.12.21, some five months after alerting ICO of this matter they wrote back to me to request further information. The Case Officer for ICO was Ian Sangan.

By the end of January 2022 there had been no movement in the complaint made to ICO and so I chased the matter up. This produced a response one day later which stated:

We have considered the information available in this case, and we are of the view that CPS have presently complied with their obligations under data protection law. We will now outline the reasons why we believe this to be the case.

We can see that the last meaningful correspondence received from the CPS was July 2021. Our view is that the CPS addressed the issues surrounding the erroneous data still held on record, and advised this has been rectified and removed. The CPS have also advised that the relevant court appear to have been notified of the rectification, and were made aware of the lack of reliability of this data. The CPS have clarified to you that this was rectified prior to the hearing itself.

We can see that the organisation historically received a rectification request in 2018, and that some of the erroneous data remained on your record. Ultimately this is not something that the ICO can reasonably ignore. As such, we have today contacted the organisation and provided them with some best practice advice going forward.


In other words for a matter of a major data error with that data released to a third party, and data which the Data Controller claimed had been corrected in 2019 ICO chose to take no action bar some advice to CPS. It is difficult to imagine a more serious breach of GDPR and the obligation to retain correct data on a person than the failure to correct information pointed out to be in error in 2018 and yet retained until 2021, then supplied to a civil court in proceedings. This is what has happened here. That this matter is not treated with the seriousness it so clearly merits forms the initial issue in a complaint of poor service to ICO.

It is of course clear that the data provided by the Court showed that CPS only corrected the record with the Court AFTER the hearing had taken place, and this data was provided to CPS which makes their comment that The CPS have also advised that the relevant court appear to have been notified of the rectification, and were made aware of the lack of reliability of this data even more puzzling. 


I appealed the decision of ICO on that basis and also that:

The ICO findings admit that you are aware that data was not corrected in 2018 and CPS admit this also. ICO has not concluded that CPS breached GDPR in the retention and supply of data in error. This is the minimum that can be expected in this matter in respect of an adjudication from CPS’ professional regulator for data issues. The original issue is the creation and retention of incorrect data in 2017 – 2018 which ICO ruled on in 2018. The seriousness of the matter is increased by the failure to correct under Article 16 in 2018 following the ICO ruling then.  

ICO in effect failed to assess if my Article 16 rights were breached by failure to correct the record acknowledged by CPS to be held in error in 2019.  

ICO’s response was to refer the matter to a reviewing officer. The response was:

In this case the CPS acknowledge their mistake in their letter of 02 July 2021 when they stated that they had retained a reference to a conviction… which was incorrect. In their letter of 02 August 2021 they stated; ‘This file has now been rectified and the information removed as soon as the error was noted’.


No interest in the significance of such an error or the consequences of it. The creation and retention of incorrect data is ignored by ICO as is the continued retention of it past 2019 despite CPS being aware of the error from that point. In effect ICO fail to reach the obvious conclusion suggested by the data supplied to them that CPS failed in their key duties and then attempted to cover the error up by lying that the record had been corrected with the suggestion this was done in time for the hearing.

It is my view that historically the CPS retained incorrect personal data about you which they went on to share with Leeds County Court and at that time it appears that this would have infringed data protection legislation. However when Ian Sangan assessed your case he was doing so based upon the knowledge that the CPS had rectified the inaccurate information in 2018. On this basis he reached his view in January 2022 that the CPS were complying with data protection legislation. With regards to the erroneous data that was held on your record prior to 2018; the actions of the CPS in sharing inaccurate information with Leeds County Court appear not to have been compliant with data protection law, at that time.

Clearly CPS failed to correct the data in 2018 / 2019! Apart from the judgment that inaccurate data was shared with the Court no action was taken by ICO. Truly a toothless watchdog!  

ICO’s John Turner wrote to me on 16.2.22 to state:
If you would like to complain about the service you have received from us I would remind you that you may be able to complain to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman via your MP.

He of course failed to mention that the matter could be put to the First Tier Tribunal who deal with matters related to information rights issues and complaints about ICO handling of matters. Possibly this was deliberate to avoid such clear evasions of responsibility by ICO being adjudicated against.  

Evidence of an inability or unwillingness on the part of ICO to properly hold organisations to account is growing.


On 12.8.22 I wrote to CPS again to state:

In your response of 11.8.21 you fail to take action in respect of the request at c) to show that the records have been corrected. This is a second breach of my Article 16 rights. I have strong grounds to believe that you continue to retain wrong data on me with the potential to cause significant damage if this is released to third parties.

I believe CPS continue to hold incorrect data and that ICO has failed to take action to assist

Following all this two data access requests made of CPS on 16.2.22 and 2.3.22.

Neither of these requests has received a response or acknowledgment from CPS who are again in breach of the law. The time period given under law has now lapsed and the Data Controller has now broken the law by failure to respond. The matter was referred to ICO.

You will likely not be surprised to hear that the response came from ICO’s master of deflection John Turner who stated:
I can concur that there has been no communication between ICO and CPS since 28 January 2022. The only communications on the case since that date have been between the ICO and you.

Following your request for a case review this was conducted on 14 February 2022 and you were sent a copy. There was no purpose to involve the CPS in the review and they were not contacted. 

I re-iterate your case is now closed and the ICO will not be taking further action  

…in other words the issue raised of two further breaches of information rights law by CPS has been cuffed off and ignored by ICO.

Conclusions

A significant series of breaches of the law have been committed by CPS and yet ICO’s investigation into these has been weak, evasive and failed to consider key evidence which shows that CPS sought to mislead ICO.



A more recent data access request to CPS has again breached the law by their failure to reply or disclose the data. Again in this matter the response of ICO is exceptionally weak and evasive. They are taking exceptional steps to avoid action to enforce the law.

ICO appears to have a “special relationship” with certain other organisations. For example it is exceptionally unlikely that they will hold such as NHS Digital to account for even very significant errors with patient records. It appears that they hold the same relationship with CPS and there must be some form of agreement for ICO not to take regulatory action equivalent to the errors these organisations commit. Instead ICO performs a series of twists and turns to avoid assessment of relevant data showing significant misconduct has taken place.

This has the effect of weakening trust in ICO’s ability to hold organisations which misconduct their data handling responsibilities to account and will eventually result in ICO being closed down as unfit for purpose. Unless of course the purpose is to assist state-run bodies in evading accountability.

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Attempted Fraud by Age UK?

Age UK used to be a charity. Used to be.  

Now only the London headquarters is a charitable organisation that gives help, guidance and suchlike to the elderly.

Like so many other organisations over the last forty years or so Age UK have given away much of their power to businesses seeking predominantly profit. This has led to significant injustice for many as services become harder to access. The example given below is a good illustration of how far things have fallen.

The social care crisis has enabled some unscrupulous activity in the care sector. As employees become harder to find firms need to be more creative about ensuring their sources of income. Some are a little too creative!

Therefore if you have an Age UK local office it is more likely this is a business run for profit as a limited company with Directors and suchlike. But they will trade with the Age UK logo and name which still makes the public think of it as a charity and not a business.

You can of course look up your local Age UK office on the Companies House website, it will be styled as Age UK Stevenage, or Age UK Bolton and so on to distinguish it from the charity and the multiple other for-profit bodies run under the same title. This will provide a list of the local Directors of the business and other useful data.

This is of course fundamentally dishonest and close to misrepresentation. It is not however the most dishonest thing about these companies which use the Age UK name, as this article will show. 

My mother is elderly, housebound and has severe medical needs. Care needs to be provided for her and we used our local Age UK for this for a period of six months or so. The service provided was… adequate. But not spectacular.

This was for home care in which carers would attend twice a day to empty commodes, make her food etc. This was of course in addition to family attending to her on a daily basis also.

The Age UK visits were to “top up” the care already being provided by relatives.

The idealised image of social care. But as the care crisis grows more severe it appears some companies are prepared to prey on the elderly.

As the service levels were not especially wonderful we said goodbye to Age UK after a time. Less impressive than anything they did to care for my mother was the tendency for workers to sit around for ten minutes in a half hour appointment after all the essential jobs were done.  

All payments to the local Age UK were of course up to date and bills were settled in good time. However when we said we no longer required their services two additional bills arrived which were over and above the work already paid for. These bills amounted in total to around £1,200 being requested when clearly all the due invoices had been settled and no additional work had been carried out. This was queried by me with the office who were adamant that the invoices represented monies due.

The local branch continued to press for payment of sums not owed. They even claimed in a letter to me that they were a charitable organisation and this is the reason the invoices should be paid, which I was able to quickly disprove by a check on Companies House, as I described above.

Eventually the matter was taken up by the firm as a civil action with my mother named as the Defendant and Age UK’s local business as the Claimant.

And this is where things start to get interesting and murkier still.

An initial hearing was due to take place in the matter in August 2021. Directions were issued by the Court that Age UK failed to comply with, in other words they failed to supply evidence, documents, a Statement and so on to the Court. The hearing was by telephone. No-one from Age UK took part in the hearing and the Court’s efforts to contact the Claimant by phone for the hearing failed. 

As a result of this the Claim was struck out by the District Judge. 

However Age UK applied to resume the claim and a further hearing date was set for September 2021. Age UK’s application for the case to be re-heard sounded impressive and worrying: in short if you believed what was written in the Application the business was tottering on the edge of bankruptcy due to the non-payment of these supposed sums owed.

What cost dignity in old age? Well if you deal with the businesses that trade under the Age UK name it could be higher than you think!

Again prior to the hearing in September 2021 Age UK had failed to enter any Statement and failed to comply with the directions of the Court. The fact that on the second go around they were still failing to produce any evidence showing that any sums were owed is telling: the claim was an abuse of process to try to obtain payments Age UK were aware were not owed, and the misuse of the civil system was to make my mother fearful of the proceedings such that she paid up to stop them.

What’s more a day before the hearing they issued a Notice of Discontinuance to stop all proceedings, recognising that severe costs would be awarded against them for their vexatious misuse of the civil court system.

And vexatious misuse is exactly what the local branch of Age UK tried.

They had no intention to go forward to a hearing with this matter but rather by the threat and then the issue of civil proceedings they sought to frighten an elderly lady in ill-health into paying sums they were fully aware were not owed.

Nor do I think my mother is the only elderly person or their family that businesses operating under the Age UK title have tried this sort of thing with: its a nice little earner when a client says goodbye to try squeezing them for funds one last time. Perhaps this is common practice in the care sector?

Had my mother not been so frail that she pushed all financial matters to family to sort out she would likely have seen those final two duplicitous invoices and paid them without thinking.

In any event she would likely have paid the sums they claim were owed at the threat of Court action. And she would certainly have paid them at the receipt of papers from the Court. In this way Age UK sought to misuse the civil court system to obtain around £1,200 they were not owed from a vulnerable elderly lady.

In a way the most disturbing thing about this is that no evidence was laid before the Court to show the sums were due. Even when their case was struck out Age UK considered it worth a punt to apply to re-start the case on the off chance this forced a payment from fear of proceedings without them having to show evidence of it being due.  

However we kept our nerve and called their bluff right up until the second hearing, just before which they folded.

Does this not raise some interesting questions?

That the charity based in London’s good name is being abused by organisations focused totally on profit, often by underhanded means. I am certain that there will be some financial kickback to the charity for this in the form of a ongoing licence to private businesses to use the name.

More to the point that the businesses who licence the name Age UK are at least partly presenting themselves as charities and not businesses.

Finally of course are the actions of the local office which are clearly bringing themselves and the charity into disrepute.

This is very much the way in modern Britain: rapacious companies prey upon the vulnerable, use intimidation and misuse the law to try to enrich themselves.

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West Yorkshire Police Caught Out Over Serious Misconduct Issue

When caught out the first reaction of many police officers is to lie.

The blog entry below relates to an illegal arrest and breach of PACE by West Yorkshire Police. Even by the low standards of that force this is a shocker.

This blog entry also relates to a effort to hide information by Plod’s Right of Access dept. and a clear effort to deceive by West Yorkshire Police Professional Standards dept.

The last two offences were exposed by the active intervention of The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who have forced police to produce documents Plod has spent the best part of a year trying to hide precisely because they prove misconduct in public office.

The background to the complaint is related to an ultra vires arrest of myself on 22nd of May 2020 without legal justification or reasonable grounds. Here’s a little background:

In May 2020 I was sent in error documents and data intended for the Metropolitan Police. This data concerned Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings against an individual living in Kent and was sent to me accidentally by The Ministry of Justice.

The data amounted to a significant data breach containing as it did many personal and financial details for this man. Given the seriousness of this I informed The Information Commissioner’s Office that a significant data breach had taken place.

Four days later I was arrested by West Yorkshire Police on the request of The Ministry of Justice under allegations that I myself had breached The Data Protection Act.

This is of course not true. Emails obtained from the Data Security Manager at HMCTS Liverpool state that they intend to have me arrested “to give him a shock” following my referral of this matter to ICO. And of course the matter was not pursued beyond the inconvenience of arrest.

This arrest also resulted in the removal of electronic devices from my home containing legally privileged, legally professionally privileged and litigation privileged materials stored electronically on those devices. This is a breach of PACE 19.6. The subsequent examination of the contents of these devices by digital forensics officers at West Yorkshire Police without triage of the privileged contents amounts to a breach of common law, which Plod then tried to hide.

As you might expect from the generally inept nature of this force the efforts to hide the data on this illegal examination resulted in the eventual revelation of misconduct in public office.

A complaint about the illegal arrest was made to West Yorkshire Police Professional Standards (PSD) in June 2020.

Part of the response to this dated 14.8.21 from the reliably evasive PC Vicky Silver at West Yorkshire Police PSD states:

The devices which were seized from your home were booked into property stores under crime reference 13200256161 and itemised to be ‘Nokia Mobile phone’ Exhibit reference DMW1 and a ‘HP Laptop’ Exhibit reference DMW2, seized devices were booked into property with the intention for these to be examined, upon the MoJ being informed of the process and timescales involved they requested no further action be taken and for your devices to be returned. PS Shand confirmed no examination took place on your devices and they were not examined, nor switched on whilst in Police possession. The records held show the devices were only removed from property stores in order to affect their return to yourself. 

Much of the above was a lie. The most significant elements of which West Yorkshire Police have now been caught out on. 

PS Shand refers to Police Sgt. Anthony (Tony) Shand. The disclosures forced by ICO show that his testimony to PSD regarding the devices not being digitally examined was a lie.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has been involved in a data access request made to Right of Access at West Yorkshire Police from August 2020. This request was originally made 27.8.20.

West Yorkshire Police Right of Access dept. has ever since been attempting to withhold evidence such as radio traffic, CCTV footage and the record of what happened to the electronic devices when in police custody.

The below is an extract from a Right of Access dept. letter to me dated 5.3.21. It can be seen that both the image showing the property record is cropped and they also deny the items were taken out of the property store for digital examination.

Cropped at the point of items being booked in. ICO later compelled the release of the unedited data.

ICO as Right of Access department’s professional regulator has made an active intervention and compelled the release of documents from West Yorkshire Police which were previously withheld.

These documents show the booking out of the electronic devices when in the property store for digital forensic examination, thus breaching common law, as of course legally privileged materials were stored on them. The version seen above was cropped to hide the removal of the devices for examination, breaching common law in so doing.

A copy of the most recent disclosure showing the data which ICO forced police to disclose is below. This shows data wholly contrary to what was stated in the PSD complaint response, seen above, of August 2020 and Right of Access department’s response of March 2021. The devices clearly were removed on the dates shown for digital forensic examination. Below is seen the unedited version of the property record – that shown above was edited by Right of Access dept. to remove incriminating data.

Laptop booked out for forensic examination 26.5.20 and returned to property store 10.6.21.
Likewise phone booked out on same date and later returned when examined.

On this basis PS Tony Shand in his testimony to PSD and PC Vicky Silver both sought to purposefully mislead in the response to the complaint made.

Right of Access dept. also sought to mislead in their response to me of March 2021 and further edited the property record by cropping out the incriminating data.

Both departments and individuals at West Yorkshire Police have stated things that they know to be untrue in an effort to avoid professional embarrassment, an allegation of misconduct in public office and the breaching of Common Law in relation to privileged material on the electronic devices. There is also the breach of PACE 19.6 in the removal of the devices from my home.

Right of Access dept. attempted to withhold the relevant document until instructed by their professional regulator ICO to release the information. Indeed an examination of the images on this page shows that they deliberately cropped the first disclosure sent to me in March 2020 to hide data. This amounts to a breach of S.77 of FOI 2000 by West Yorkshire Police as there has been a purposeful effort to hide relevant data. This is a criminal offence under the relevant Act.

That there existed significant opportunity for WYP to produce the relevant data prior to ICO intervention but they avoided doing so to try to hide misconduct in relation to the electronic devices.

The purpose of withholding the data was to avoid professional embarrassment to West Yorkshire Police over a breach of Common Law in the retention and examination of legally privileged material contrary PACE 19.6 and the seizure and retention of the same without a warrant.

It is now clear from the disclosure made as the result of pressure from ICO that West Yorkshire Police has not only committed purposeful misconduct in public office over the seizure, retention and examination of legally privileged material without a warrant but also that they have attempted to cover this up by wholly misleading statements in the complaint response and the subsequent effort made to hide disclosure requested.

Had ICO not forcibly intervened in this matter then the degree of misconduct and breach of legally privileged material would have remained hidden.

Given that they lie so glibly over such a serious matter none of the other assertions made by West Yorkshire Police Professional Standards dept. in any complaint response can be trusted to be factual and truthful.

As anyone who has ever dealt with that department will be aware!

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Active Discrimination by Ministry of Justice?

I have been contacted by the carer of a disabled lady who has detailed a level of misconduct from such as The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), HMCTS, Judicial Conduct Investigations Office & others that makes for shocking reading.

The lady concerned has learning disabilities and for the purpose of this blog entry and to preserve her anonymity we’ll call her Liz. She required ICO to modify their communications with her in order to assist her disabilities. ICO failed to do this, which if course made communication with them very much more difficult, and so she launched a Judicial Review. This brought her into contact with the civil court system where arguably she suffered worse discrimination than originally from ICO.

The Equality Act 2010 and the United Nations Convention on disability rights are supposed to help to enforce, protect and promote the rights of disabled people to access public services and promote equality of access to such.

However as is so often the case in modern Britain the aim falls far short of the reality. As I’ve said Liz’s issues began when The Information Commissioner’s Office failed to communicate with her in a format she could read and understand; she has limited reading and comprehension skills.

Things frequently go from bad to worse when an organisation fails to make adaptations to assist the disabled. This is true of ICO but the same issues were experienced in Liz’s dealings with The Ministry of Justice.

I should add at this point that all of the organisations mentioned in this blog entry will also have guidelines in respect of how to treat everyone equally. They have all fallen far short of this leading to mistreatment and injustice.

An email to me from this lady’s carer shows that further injustice happens from HMCTS…

“When she has attempted to request accessibility from HMCTS, regarding Judicial Reviews against The Ombudsman’s refusing to send her written correspondence, refusal to contact her by phone and when she phones their services to request accessibility, complaints responses and S.A.R’s.”

When Liz called HMCTS she was apparently verbally abused by their staff over the phone. Liz has communication difficulties and it is easy for someone to misinterpret these in a phone call. There are recordings of such calls to Manchester Civil Justice Centre.

When Liz asks for responses to her complaints due to her communication difficulties staff fail to respond appropriately or make proper allowances for her disabilities. This is of course the nub of her original complaint to the Courts in the first place! She has also been supplied the personal data of another HMCTS service user, although this is not unusual given that organisation’s haphazard approach to data protection & privacy.

Most damming of all is the response of Customer Investigations at the MoJ’s head office.

This is the final port of call to get a complaint response outside of referring a complaint against HMCTS to civil action. There are also apparently call recordings retained where Richard Redgrave, the head of Customer Investigations starts laughing and finds it funny that his original land line is inactive and been inactive for the 18 months this lady has attempted to phone him on it. There has been a similar inappropriate responses from The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The courts have failed to provide the lady with any adaptation and assistance with access to their services with the seeming result that her civil claim failed and there are presently costs against her. Any correspondence from the Court is problematic as this lady cannot read. Again a required adaptation has not been made. Rather more cruelly a Civil Restraint Order was made against her and this of course results in further disadvantage.

I have a list of several named Court staff who have apparently treated this lady appallingly on the account given by her carer.

The adaptations that are needed for her to be able to deal with the Court effectively and understand the process are not extensive but are clear and evident. The level of learning difficulties experienced means that the Court has a higher level of duty of care towards someone who has such restrictions in their everyday life. Indeed there is a simple moral duty here also.

I don’t know why the Courts have failed Liz so badly.

I suspect that it would be more time-consuming and awkward to make the adaptations she needs and that because of speech issues phone calls from her would be very difficult to understand. This requires time and patience. It is not beyond the ability of any organisation however! It is equally not beyond the ability of MoJ to ensure that all service users are treated equally and fairly.

What looks like deliberate cruelty from several members of HMCTS staff takes considerably more explaining though.

That they have not treated Liz kindly, made appropriate adaptations to accommodate her disabilities and even at times shown outright cruelty is an indication of how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.

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Unfit for Public Office?

The Labour Party has just finished having its annual conference by the seaside.

Amidst all of the in-fighting, lunatic fringe groups and hapless idealism there’s a purpose the Party is trying to work towards. It is trying to give the impression it is a party that is electable to Government. The party’s own website states that its aim is “To build a future that everyone in Britain can be proud of.” The party considers itself as a democratic fair-minded social movement as well as a political party.



Let’s take a look at the kind of future that The Labour Party would have us live in by examining the behaviour of one of their MP’s today, and the party’s response overall to the MP’s repeated failures to act on behalf of a constituent. It’s clear that The Labour Party does not like dissenting voices: this can be seen in the way significant numbers of members and their views have been marginalised within the party in the last few years.

I am unfortunate enough to live in the constituency of Yvette Cooper MP. Elected originally in the Labour landslide of 1997 she has been MP for Castleford, Pontefract and Normanton since then. She is married to former MP Ed Balls.

Early warning signs regarding the quality of the representation the constituency was saddled with came in 1998 when The Daily Mail revealed that in her wedding to fellow MP Ed Balls local party members who wished to go to the reception were charged an additional fee on top of their overnight accommodation for their attendance at the wedding. This additional fee was used to pay off the costs of the venue hire. In 2014 it was reported that Balls and Cooper used the unreformed expenses schemes to pay £655,000 for a house in Stoke Newington. The pair were subject to various claims during the expenses scandal, the most notorious of which was the fact they ‘flipped’ the designation of their second homes THREE times within two years. More details on this can be seen here: Microsoft Word – CRC 4th ver Balls-Cooper _Rev_ _4_.doc (parliament.uk)
The pair were also found to have claimed for 375 journeys taken by their children between Yorkshire and London over a three year period, totalling more than £14,000. This exceeded the allowance, which stood at a maximum of 30 journeys per year per child (or 90 journeys as they have three children). They were not sanctioned for this either.
In 2007/08 Yvette Cooper claimed £152,659 in expenses and allowances alone on top of her MP salary.

Now fast-forward to today. If you have a complaint regarding some public services such as the NHS the final destination for the complaint is The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, or PHSO. In order to use the PHSO one has to firstly get a form from the PHSO signed by your MP, who then sends this in to the Ombudsman.

On several occasions in the last few years I have requested Cooper do this. On each of those occasions there has been a very considerable delay, sometimes of several months, before the forms are signed and sent to PHSO. On one occasion lack of communication on the matter this prompted me to attend at her offices where Labour Party members (clearly trained in shouting down complaints of poor service) took a bullish and aggressive attitude. It was amusing to see how they’d been trained in standing one to either side of a complaining constituent to add an element of physical intimidation to the utter nonsense they were spouting justifying delays of several months.

This MP’s is happy to profit from her Parliamentary position but not so keen to assist in the day-to-day business of being an MP. Lethargy towards getting things done for her constituents has become so familiar to PHSO that in May 2021 they forwarded a form to her themselves and requested she sign it rather than the other way around! I note of course that Cooper is also not shy at garnering publicity for extravagant gestures around the constituency, particularly if it means getting her face in the newspaper or on television. And why not indeed as such things greatly assist in re-election? Quiet, patient endeavour on behalf of individual constituents generally does not.

However going back a little further in time; in January 2021 a form for signing and forwarding to PHSO was emailed to Cooper by me. Nothing was heard in relation to this and so the matter was chased in March and more intensively from July onwards. At no point was any response back received from Cooper or her office to either phone calls or emails, which invariably went to answer-phone.

One of the reasons Cooper’s husband Ed Balls was ejected from his seat of Morley and Outwood in 2015 is colloquially said to be because of his deficiency as a constituency MP. Balls used his time in Parliament to strut on the national stage and build his own profile but did little to assist his electors, hence his losing in 2015. Cooper’s present strategy appears broadly similar: to swan around as chair on Select Committees in Parliament and write books on women’s history. Neither of these directly benefit her constituents and if my own experience is anything to go by she’ll shortly be joining her husband on TV dancing shows, only without Ed Balls looks and ability to gyrate unconvincingly.

And so on we went into August with no word from Cooper’s constituency office regarding its intentions in respect of a matter put before them in January 2021. Could this be because the office was unmanned due to lack of funds? The Register of Member’s Interests show Cooper’s constituency office has been the recipient of considerable donations from various persons over the last few years to enable its upkeep and running. These include such as Peter Hearn who backed Cooper in the last but one Labour Party leadership election, but also backed the Tories at the same time. This is called hedging your bets. Some very substantial donations to the running of Cooper’s constituency office total tens of thousands of pounds over the last three years. Is all of this being spent in looking after the needs of constituents? I would suggest not. Clearly however there is enough funding going into the constituency office to make it a viable concern.

Once again in August 2021 I visited the constituency office to ask what on earth was going on. By intercom I was asked to leave before they even knew the purpose of my visit. That’s some customer service!

Consequently I made a formal complaint to The Labour Party of poor service this included a complaint of all the prior occasions I’ve communicated with Cooper’s office when service has been exceptionally poor.

A response came back from The Labour Party on 10.8.21.

Your complaint about Yvette Cooper MP has been assessed and we will be taking no further action at this time. This is because what you have complained about does not fall within what we can accept for investigation under our Complaints Policy, outlined in Appendix 1. Exclusions from the Complaints Policy, iv. Complaints about elected representatives that specifically relate to the way in which they carry out their duties as an elected representative.

To which my reply was:I appreciate your focus is to drop this complaint as quickly as possible without investigation. I refer to the points raised in the complaint, seen again below. Your grounds for non-investigation are that the complaint should refer to the way an elected representative carries out their duties.

Points 1-3, 5 and 8-9 deal specifically with the ability of Ms. Cooper to carry out her duties as an elected representative. Specifically these relate to the requirement for an MP to complete and return complaints for the attention of The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, which cannot be put to PHSO by any other means.

Therefore the complaint falls within the remit of appendix 1, sub para. iv of your complaints policy.

The Complaints Team The Labour Party is based at Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London. They wrote back to claim their own internal rules did not apply to the complaint made.


I wrote back again on 12.8.21 and stated:


“Please produce for me a complete copy of the relevant rules you refer to. This can be sent via PDF or you may wish to provide a link to an online document.”

I kept chasing a copy of this document over the next week. The suddenly… guess what? They wrote back to me again on 20.8.21 and stated:

“Your complaint about Jo Cole has been assigned for investigation.  This entails ensuring that all relevant information is gathered to allow a full consideration to be made” 


“As we understand it, your complaint(s) is about Bullying, Intimidation and harassment.  Please let us know as soon as possible if our understanding is incorrect.  It will not be possible to add further complaints once the investigation has commenced.   

Once as much evidence as possible has been gathered, it will be passed to a panel of the National Executive Committee (NEC) for their consideration.  Based on the evidence, the Panel will make a decision as to whether the complaint is upheld and then what the appropriate sanction should be.”  
“The process of investigating and deciding a complaint can take some time but we will update you at relevant points throughout.”

This seems pretty conclusive. Rather that providing a written copy of the articles and memoranda detailing how a complaint is investigated, the relevant rules for so doing and the grounds of acceptable behaviour for party members, MP’s and workers they simply decided to investigate the complaint. Fair enough. Presume Jo Coles is the employee at Cooper’s office who I spoke to on my visit in August. 

Not so fast though! This came in a few days later:

“Your complaint about Yvette Cooper MP/ Jo Coles that you raised on 1st March 2021 has been assessed and we will be taking no further action at this time. This is because what you have complained about does not constitute a breach of the Labour Party rules.”

Ignoring the fact that the complaint was actually in August, not in March I requested a copy of those same rules, as I had requested in mid-August. I’m still awaiting a copy. They reverted to the position held in mid-August 2021 that the matter subject to a complaint had not breached their rules but refused to prove a copy of what those rules were. Democratic movement much? Hmmm…
The party has failed to answer numerous emails requesting this data or a more comprehensive explanation as to why they have refused to investigate the complaint. 

Why should all this matter?

Presently The Labour Party is attempting to present itself as a party fit to make the next Government. The experience I have had of Cooper is that the normal running of her office is lethargic and indifferent. That matters brought to her which amount to simple requests are delayed for several months and require much chasing before any effort is made on her part. That there should be a wait of the best part of a year on a matter put to her in January 2021 is wholly unacceptable. Yet in a short while Cooper will be again presenting herself to the local electorate as an MP capable of forwarding their interests in Westminster. Much of the clear evidence from the last twenty five years suggests otherwise, however. 
My own experience is that Cooper is happy to take part in any event which will bring positive publicity or a photo opportunity but is uninterested in the needs of individual constituents. Since August 2021 Cooper has refused to sign the forms for PHSO sent in January 2021 and has clearly decided in relation to myself that I am not a constituent “worth” helping. The end result of this is that the ability to use the PHSO to resolve a complaint has been lost to me. 

The party’s mechanism for dealing with complaints suggests an organisation which is untrustworthy and slippery. Clearly this enables MP’s like Cooper to get away with exceptionally poor service towards constituents and the kind of financial sleight-of-hand described above. Taken together the performance of Cooper and The Labour Party when given the chance to act and put the matter right suggests that neither are remotely reliable or electable.

We Cooper presently has a majority of only around 1,200 enabling her to remain in office and must surely realise that the game is up for her at the next election. Perhaps this is why she is focused on writing books and appearing on Select Committees. Her majority has been whittled down over the years to this very slender margin. This suggests that constituents are indeed waking up to the level of poor service received. She has obtained a very nice living from her position since 1997 and it may well be that the constituents of Pontefract, Castleford and Normanton are now waking to the fact that that they need an MP who is prepared to act on their behalf occasionally

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How South Yorkshire Police Evade Investigating Crimes & Evade Accountability

On Tuesday 22nd of September 2020 I alerted South Yorkshire Police to a crime taking place in their area.

This followed the original reporting of this matter via an online form for just such a purpose. The online form had not received a response some considerable time after being completed, so the appropriate phone call was made.

This call was to the non-emergency number and it took the duration of a trip from Leeds to Bridlington on the East Yorkshire coast for the police to pick up the call, so around one and a half hours.

Finally managing to speak with an officer he disputed that the incident being reported was a crime. In fact I was advised to call South Yorkshire Police in relation to this matter by two other agencies that I had already reported the crime to: they considered the seriousness of the matter sufficient to warrant police attention. The officer spoken to was a PC PC Marc Horsbrough.

In the call Horsbrough’s behaviour and attitude was lazy, gave the impression he couldn’t care less and was reluctant to record the crime even when the relevant legislation was pointed out to him. More seriously he later he called me back and the content of that call amounted to unwarranted personal attack on me and a flat refusal to record a crime.

I should point out at this stage that the crime has now been recorded and the suspect interviewed: further developments are awaited. This took place only after the completion of a futher online form, not via the non-emergency phone service to South Yorkshire Police.

A formal complaint was made to South Yorkshire Police Complaints and Discipline Team:

  1. A complaint of a crime was made. This was done via the online form. That the response from the online form took longer than the 72 hours it states online for any action to be taken in respect of the referral of a crime.   
  2. That the online form had still not been processed some 7 days later.   
  3. That from comments made by Complaints and Dicipline in their email of 2.10.20 it would appear that this online referral has been lost.    
  4. That a series of phone calls were made by me on Tuesday 22.9.20 and Wednesday 23.9.20 to SYP to establish what was happening in relation to the online referral.   
  5. That these calls were either cut off when transferred to the appropriate department or else rang out for an exceptionally long period.   
  6. That on eventually speaking to an officer he stated that he had no copy of the online form in front of him but proceeded to dismiss the referral to SYP as being not something that police would deal with. This is incorrect. CPS guidance has been quoted that clearly shows the activity being reported is a criminal offence. The officer was Marc Horsbrough. working in either the Comms dept or Crime Recording around 12:45 – 1.30pm on 23.9.20.    
  7. That the same officer rang me back several minutes later.  
  8. That his comments on the call back amount to harassment and intimidation. His manner during this second call was offensive, uncivil and harassing.    
  9. That the officer concerned did this solely for the purpose of causing harassment, vexation and distress. On the second call he refused to give his name or service number when asked which is usually indicative of an officer misconducting himself.   

    That overall the standard of conduct in relation to this matter is sufficient to cause loss of reputation for the force.       

The complaint was given the reference number CO/665/20.

Calls to and from police stations are recorded on a system called Airwave. When South Yorkshire Police later claimed that they could not trace the officer involved they were simply being disingenuous: the record of all calls will have enabled an easy trace of officer identity and indeed the identity of the officer has been found out by other enquiries.

From 5th of November 2020 to 13th of March 2020 no communication from police was received in relation to this complaint. They additionally failed to respond to emails requesting a progress update. The Police Reform Act 2002 states that police should keep complainants updated every twenty eight days with a progress update on the complaint.

So I wrote to The Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC). I have addressed the issue in prior blog entries that IOPC is very significantly staffed by former police officers, and provided the results of a data access request showing this, and so they cannot in any way claim to be “independent”. IOPC wrote back on 23rd of March to state:

“Upon receipt of your correspondence, we contacted the Complaints and Dicipline [sic]Team Department (PSD) of South Yorkshire Police to ascertain the status of your complaint. The PSD have advised that your complaint has been recorded under their reference CO/665/20, and that the investigation of the matter is still live. They stated that they have asked the case handler of your complaint to make contact with you.”

Around a month later still no response from South Yorkshire Police. IOPC cannot investigate a complaint when it is still with the relevant force, meaning that they cannot step in on this matter and compel South Yorkshire Police to act.
So I again wrote to IOPC who stated:

“I have contacted the PSD and asked them to make contact with you and provide an update.”


I then wrote to police a few more times to chase an update on the basis that they had failed to comply with the instructions of their professional regulator. On 15th of June, some three months after IOPC originally made contact with South Yorkshire Police on this matter the following came from George Henson at their Complaints and Discipline Team:

“I can confirm the receipt of your email and I have passed it onto the case handler of your complaint referenced above.”

…which tells me nothing about the progress of the complaint. This was the last communication received from South Yorkshire Police in relation to this matter.

A recent update to The Police Reform Act 2002 states that police are only obligated to inform a complainant when something has taken place in relation to the complaint investigation. As there has been no such update the clear conclusion is that there has been no proper investigation of this matter. We are now over one year elapsed from the complaint being made.

Likely this is because the Airwave system on which calls to and from police stations are recorded retains data for a set period. The failure to investigate this complaint is probably down to South Yorkshire Police attempting to “run down the clock” towards the deletion of this data which will show clear misconduct on the part of one of their officers. This will enable their Complaints and Discipline Team to then dismiss the complaint on the basis of lack of evidence.

The original crime was referred to an Inspector Stephen Fennell and has been investigated, albeit at a very slow pace.

The exceptionally poor service received before this investigation took place suggests anyone living in South Yorkshire who has a crime to report should really not bother. The delays and wasted time attempting to contact police on their non-emergency number and their lethargic attitude which attempts to actively put people off referring a crime are bad enough. However in my case the officer, because I had quoted the relevant section of law at him, took umbrage. His fragile police ego had been dented and his response was to abuse me on a call back and refuse to record the crime. The actions of South Yorkshire Police since have all been directed towards evasion of responsibility for the actions of this officer in a way which breaches their duty of care and obligations to investigate complaints under the relevant law.

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The Not-Independent Office of Police Complaints

Were you aware of the numbers of former police officers working for the supposedly Independent Office of Police Complaints?

The organisation describes itself on its own website:

We are independent, and make our decisions entirely independently of the police and government.

But a document that IOPC prefers not to draw attention to can be accessed online at:

Copy of IOPC staff diversity stats 310320 FINAL proofread.xlsx (policeconduct.gov.uk)

This shows the – frankly – shocking numbers of former officers and former police civilian staff employed at IOPC. An organisation that is supposed to be independent in relation to complaints made against the police.

Can it really be expected that staff working for IOPC are prepared to justly and reasonably criticise their former force or colleagues they’ve worked with hand in glove for years? Of course not. There’s a reason officers on Twitter use the hashtag #PoliceFamily

Indeed the figures speak for themselves: there’s a roughly one in ten chance of a complaint made about the police being upheld.

In the event of a complaint against the police you would be better off ignoring the police complaints process altogether and moving directly to instruct solicitors.

More seriously in the event of a fatality during contact with the police the staffing ratio of former officers presents a considerable barrier to a free and open investigation of the facts in such serious cases.

Ain’t life in Britain grand!

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One Day With The NHS

My mother is a geriatric and has a series of medical issues. Therefore I need to organise her appointments etc. for her.

Without any political axe to grind here’s what’s happened over one day in my involvement with either the NHS itself or organisations it subcontracts to.

Expensive, incompetently managed and the cause of endless inconvenience.

One.

Continence nurse arrives 20mins late. Actually about four months late we requested a referral in May but the GP surgery failed to pass the referral on.

Consequently we’ve struggled on since May managing the condition on our own with occasional non-effective chase-ups of the practice.

Two.

Letter arrives from subcontracted provider. They want to do an ophthalmologist appointment by telephone. How they’ll be able to spot anything wrong with her eyes by hearing her voice is a mystery.

The letter also insufficiently explains the reason for the appointment and why it’s been requested. Half an hour on hold waiting to speak to the provider to establish need and purpose of appointment.

Three.

Her medication is delivered from the pharmacy.

This is after calling yesterday and being told they don’t accept repeat prescription orders on a Sunday. Guess what? That’s right. Not all medication has been delivered.

Call to pharmacy. Surgery has stopped the repeats on a vital tablet she takes three times a day.

Call to surgery. 40th in queue. They can’t understand why the tablet has been taken off repeat prescription but should be able to get her some more. By Wednesday.

Four.

She’s due a hospital out patient appointment tomorrow but this has been cancelled around 3.30 today. Have to then also cancel patient transport booked one week ago, which was a 45min call on its own.

Ring the hospital as the message was left with my mother who didn’t get all the details needed.

First few times it rings for a while then cuts off. This is standard for the hospital we deal with. Then get through to the wrong person who transfers me back to switchboard.

Finally get transferred to the right department. They clearly don’t like speaking to the public as there’s a voice message encouraging you to email them on an address no pensioner would be able to take down in time or likely spell correctly. Therefore still none the wiser about why the appointment has been cancelled or what happens next. No call back received.

Time taken overall: 3hrs

Cock-up’s occurred: Arguably 3-4

Patience: Exhausted

It’s the poor or non-existent communication that I find most irritating. That the patient’s representative or carer is left to chase up everything as nothing is explained in advance nor are the reasons for things happening. The experience of the NHS is therefore that you suffer the error first, then need to chase it up long before you gain the benefit of any service provided.

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HMCTS Under Fire From The Information Commissioner’s Office. Again!

Hard to think of two more poorly run institution than HMCTS and it’s parent
organisation The Ministry of Justice.

This is a very simple post detailing a simple but significant error. So no lengthy explanation as to what’s happened on this occasion!

HMCTS shared my personal financial details with a third party.

That’s it. That’s basically all that can be said in the post.

But wait!

Stop and think for a few moments and we can see this is matter is actually considerably more significant and serious than it first looks.

The letter from The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) finding against HMCTS can be seen below.

But the operative paragraph from it is simple and plain:

The nub of the issue.

Why should this matter?

Personal data in the care of such as HMCTS and MoJ has the potential to cause significant damage if released inappropriately. Release to a third party with no requirement for or rights to such data can and does cause significant issues.

The simple fact is that the incompetence of County Court staff knows no bounds.

Indeed the vindictiveness of their management towards anyone who has received appalling service from HMCTS also knows no bounds. In this matter an out-of-court settlement was agreed upon to be paid fourteen days from the agreement. Some three months after this agreement I was still awaiting payout.

HMCTS and MoJ are simply two organisations which have ceased to function in any meaningful way and the amount of time spent on damage limitation, denying errors have occurred and attempting to maintain an image of professionalism would be better spent actually running courts efficiently in the first instance.

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