Salford's botched handling of FoI

So just how desperate were the University of Salford to avoid having to deal with Freedom of Information requests submitted regarding their expense accounts and managerial activities? A subject access request to the Office of the Information Commissioner eventually resulted in a response amounting to several hundred pages of documentation being handed over, including correspondence between the University and the investigating Case Officer, Mr Steve Dickinson.


So what has this vast bulge of documentation revealed? Well, in no particular order:

• The University wrote to Mr Dickinson no less than three times pleading for a face-to-face meeting rather than engaging in correspondence. Why exactly they request this is unclear. What is clear is that the University promise to cover Mr Dickinson's travel expenses and submitted the following, rather perplexing, line: "I am certain that we can demonstrate to your satisfaction that disruption was a primary objective of this campaign."
• In spite of Mr Dickinson pointing out to the University that a face-to-face meeting would be "somewhat unusual", this meeting appears to have gone ahead. Mr Dickinson appears to have met up with Matthew 'Accident' Stephenson and Alison Purnell (Martin Hall's Chief of Staff - a very regal sounding job title). There is no indication of where or when this meeting took place, why it was necessary or what documentation or information was exchanged. A request has been submitted asking for further clarification.
• About 80% of the submissions made by the University are in fact totally irrelevant waffle. There are pages and pages of articles from the Times Higher Education, Manchester Evening News, Private Eye, Salford Star etc. There are even paper copies of comments on the news stories by individuals the University has deemed 'undesirables', including hand-written notes in some instances of what became of the transgressors.
• There was also a great show made of critical comments left on Professor Martin Hall's increasingly bizarre blog (which this week seems to implicitly attack the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). Vast swathes of the endless documentation were in fact copies of his blog and comments deemed 'undesirable'.
• The University have sought plenty of legal advice regarding their position - a sure fire indication of how much they wanted to avoid processing many requests for information.
• There are also pages and pages of waffle in which the number of requests submitted to the University are analysed numerically and in graphical representations (this being a supposed 'justification' for not dealing with any of them).
•  Election campaign materials of several individuals - including those that have not submitted any Freedom of Information Requests (to our knowledge) - were incorporated into the 'evidence' and the University attempted to argue that these were relevant in terms of there being a campaign to disrupt the workings of the University.
• Unsurprisingly, both the initial decision to treat requests as vexatious and the decision to re-affirm this at Internal Review were taken by the same individual within the University - our old friend, Dr Adrian Graves.
• More worryingly, Dr Graves submitted on 22nd September a letter to Steve Dickinson in which he actually defames several of the requestors in order to try and justify the claim of Vexatiousness. This includes a 'chronology' of events leading up to the requests (much of which is, in fact, a complete fabrication), as well as accusing two of the requestors of criminal offences (another fabrication). Needless to say, he offers absolutely no evidence for the assertions, and we are currently investigating whether written submissions to the Information Commissioner's Office meet with Absolute or Qualified Privilege. [Edit] - turns out it meets with Qualified Privilege (i.e. can be defeated by demonstration of malice), so bon appetit!

So there you have it. Face-to-face meetings of questionable necessity, defamation, legal advice, hundreds of pages of 'evidence' submitted.

Oh and by the way, none of it worked!

You'd be Daffyd to keep him! *Updates*

The University of Salford's Audit Committee is described on their website in the following, rather flattering, terms:

"The Audit Committee is responsible to Council for adequate and effective risk management, control and governance (including ensuring the probity of the financial statements and the effective management and quality assurance of data submitted to funding bodies) and for the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the institution's activities."

All very proper sounding. But why oh why, given these onerous and crucial responsibilities that the committee is required to fulfil, would the University elect to keep Ian 'Daffyd' Austin as its Chairman?

News has emerged today via The Lawyer that Halliwells LLP - the 'Biggest Law Firm in the North West' that Ian Austin 'managed' to its collapse - went into administration last year owing creditors a staggering £200,000,000.00.

Yes, you read that correctly - Two Hundred Million Pounds.

This includes a staggering £5.5m debt owed to Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs in unpaid taxes and VAT, and £17.7m to the (government owned) Royal Bank of Scotland.

But not only are the University of Salford placing huge trust in Austin to provide 'adequate and effective risk management' (!!), but they obviously trust his judgement enough to employ his legal services in order to try and pursue a libel case against Dr Gary Duke - a case mired in controversy and which has gone conspicuously quiet as of late.

So if the University want to know why some people seem not to trust the judgement of senior management, they need look no further than their placing their faith in Mr Austin.

*Updates*

The Administrators of Halliwells LLP have reported that it is highly unlikely that the small business creditors of the failed firm will ever be repaid. This includes an unfortunate Sandwich Shop owner, who the firm were running up massive bills with until the day they announced their intention to file for administration. This behaviour on the part of 'respectable' lawyers is frankly disgusting.

Furthermore, it appears that a number of the former Halliwells employees will have their day in court. Naturally we will be covering these proceedings to see what revelations emerge.

Vexatiousness and the Freedom of Information Act

So what did the Information Commissioner make of the University of Salford's deeply convoluted, poorly justified application of section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act as an excuse to refuse to publish great swathes of information about their expense accounts and managerial activities?

Well, in short, he thought it was total rubbish, ruling that the University of Salford failed to demonstrate evidence of a coordinated campaign of requests designed to divert their resources (now there's a chuffing surprise!) and also that several of the requests had both a serious purpose and value.

The highlights:

"The University has not been able to demonstrate indisputable links between all the parties whose requests have been refused.


"The University's evidence, though considerable, is largely circumstantial.


"There is a distinction between annoyance caused by possible disclosure of controversial information, and annoyance caused by receipt of a deliberately vexatious request. 


"The commissioner finds no conclusive evidence that the requests are designed to cause any such disruption or annoyance"


Needless to say, the Commissioner eventually ruled that the University had indeed broken the law with respect to the Freedom of Information Act (another surprise!) and had incorrectly applied their section 14(1) defence (exemption on the grounds of vexatiousness - discussed in previous posts).

Where do we go from here? That's a very good question. Perhaps Vice-Chancellor Professor Martin Hall will realise the damage he is doing to his own, and his University's reputation, in not putting a halt to this continued prevention of scrutiny of University expenditure.

Or, perhaps, a little more exposure in the national press might help to convince him.

Watch this space.