Westminster Council and Molly Mogs Ltd

I've been following an interesting FOI request from B Coleman (blog here) over Westminster City Council's £1000 payment to Molly Mogs Ltd. Now Molly Moggs is a bar, known according to some commentators on What Do They Know as drag bar, which of course raises the interesting question as to why the money of local taxpayers was being paid to this local business.


Westminster, who do not have the best of FOI records at the best of time (the local authority is on the ICO's watch list of poor performers), certainly did not help matters by refusing the follow up request. This evasion has prompted some expectation of some less than savoury goings on behind the scenes of the council, with even local press picking up on the prospect of a story lurking in the background. Picking up on the evasion I too, along with others, followed up with a question a couple of days ago, the answer to which will still I think be interesting.

In any case Westminster Council have today responded with an answer that to a large extent snuffs out hopes that there is a conspiracy in the offing, although I am still interested in the Homefinder scheme itself and think that the authoriser of a £1000 payment should be disclosed.

Overall, however there is I think a moral to the story. For the FOI requester the failure to answer a public authority to professionally answer a response and instead evade its responsibilities is more likely to be evidence of incompetent officials and/or inadequate training and investment from management rather than conspiracy. For Westminster Council the lesson is simple: not only does transparent government stop accusations of misconduct it also saves work in the long run.

Nottingham City Council FOI Compliance

Over on WhatDoTheyKnow there's an astounding FOI response from Nottingham City Council. The Council was asked how many FOI requests had been received in the previous two years and, of these, how of these were answered outside of the 20 day maximum. The answer? Astoundingly Nottingham City Council have answered that of the 1491 requests that were received 623 were not answered within 20 days - that amounts to 42% of all of Nottingham City Council's responses are in breach of the law of the land.


On the back of this we have requested information from ICO on the number of appeals submitted and the actions ICO has taken to challenge the Council's performance - an update will be posted when this is received.

An Asylum Amnesty?

In the House of Commons research note on the Case Resolution Directorate Programme the UK Border Agency is quoted as saying that:

This is not an amnesty for individuals whose cases are unresolved. We will consider the cases in same way as new applications, using the same rules to decide whether applicants qualify for permission to stay in the United Kingdom or should be refused asylum and removed from the country. Human rights factors will be part of this assessment.

 In its own report on the CRD in June 2011 the Home Affairs Select Committee suggesting that the grant rate "amounts to an amnesty"(BBC). The argument to suggest that the tens of thousands granted status in the UK as a result of this was not an amnesty is that these cases were considered in the same way as all other cases but that because they had been unresolved longer many had more accrued human rights.

In relation to that request we asked UKBA what we thought was quite a simple question - how many of the 161,000 granted had previously been refused asylum, how many had not had a decision and how many had never claimed asylum.  

UKBA responded that they did not know and could not tell how many cases had been previously discovered, a decision upheld on appeal.