Wrexham Council delete all trace of Kingdom Zero Tolerance Meeting
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You couldn’t make this up.
Finally got my response to the FOI request today asking for a copy or transcript of the Kingdom meeting webcast where they allegedly stated that Kingdom should follow a zero tolerance approach to litter enforcement.
This is their response – unbelievable!
Freedom of Information Act 2000
Further to your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, please find attached the response from Wrexham County Borough Council. Unfortunately, we no longer hold the information.
If you are unhappy with the way the Council has handled your request, you may ask for an internal review. Please contact [email protected] 01978 292000 if you require an internal review of your case.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at – Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AS, telephone 0303 123 1113, http://www.ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely
Corporate Information Team / TÎm Gwybodaeth Corfforedig
So in other words they have completely deleted the webcast & there is no physical evidence available to back-up Clr Bithell’s claims about what was said in the meeting in regards to zero tolerance.
He is making things up. Kingdom are running amok in Wrexham under no-one’s orders.
For clarity do the Council destroy the webcast meeting videos after the six months they are available to view by the public? Wasn’t there mention that minutes are less detailed because they now have a full video of meetings? Surely the Council must keep accurate records of what takes place in meetings. It is easier to find detailed information about the old Wrexham Maelor Borough Council in the Library , where monthly income for the Monday Market and individual car park income were itemised. The minutes are bland these days in comparison.
[quote quote=151382]For clarity do the Council destroy the webcast meeting videos after the six months they are available to view by the public?[/quote]
Very good question – I asked for video footage or a transcription of said video footage specific to a meeting subsection that previously was available for the 6 months.
The Council’s response to an official FOI request would suggest that as they no longer hold the information that they have in fact destroyed it.
What’s more interesting is that when Rob requested the footage for Wrexham.com he was denied access. So has the footage been viewed and found to be unfavourable to the Executive Board and deleted between when he requested it and when I requested it and received a response?
It took them weeks to tell me the information is no longer available. Surely if the information was still available when I put in the FOI request they would be duty bound to preserve it rather than destroy it – for the public interest.
There is a difference between destroyed and deleted as far as technology is concerned – in most instances a deleted file can be recovered relatively easy so unsure how the Council have come up that it is not available.
In today’s world of mass storage, the space required to hold a webcast would be very small. It would also be very easy to run a webcast file through word capture software that could convert the audio into a Word document that would require considerably less storage.
What has happened seems to be a matter of convenience not to have a true record.One for the new Chief Executive when he takes up office. Maybe a new Standing Order is required to cover the new technology. Either detailed minutes or retain the web-cast of the meetings, nothing complicated.
Data retention does have various policies on when it is destroyed.
Back in 2014 I was FOI’ing to discover further detail on damage to the car park barrier in the councillors carpark by Llwyn Isaf, week commencing 3 March 2014.
The damage cost £3,750 + vat to repair, and was caused “… due to a malfunction of the barrier equipment at the time. Barrier arm dropped down prematurely whilst vehicle was driving through” with the Council telling me the barrier got caught in a roofrack, and a councillor was spoken to regarding damage and to check for any injuries.
Before anyone asks I could not confirm the councillor in question, and therefore could not check they were ok, and if WCBC were covering damage to their van, or car.
Back on topic…. my questions included:
– Detail if CCTV exists, or existed, of the incident occurring, again if more than one incident has occurred this year a break down per- incident would be useful.– If CCTV of an incident or incidents exist where the identity of the responsible party has not been identified is it possible to be provided with a copy of the video in whatever format is most convenient.
I was told “CCTV Footage was available at the time of the incident” and “CCTV footage is not held by Environment”
I had to go back and ask if the CCTV existed in another department or was destroyed, and if so when.
I was told ” Unfortunately a copy was not made and this was destroyed as standard – 15 days later from the date.”
Anyway, a long winded point – you go back you might be able to discover when the meeting archive was deleted and what policy that is covered by.
IMHO it is a waste if things are zapped, mainly from a historical viewpoint. Perhaps WCBC could post some DVDs or hard drives down to Kew with a note not to open for 75 years if the contents are that sensitive ? :)
There are defined times for the retention of CCTV images as set out under the GDPR regulations that came into force 25th May this year. The recording of meetings with the consent of people involved (Councillors have already signed for image retention) is not covered by the GDPR retention policy as CCTV systems which are defined as ‘random capture of images’.
The only point would be is that any member of the public asking a question would have to sign to authorise retention. In years gone by the minute books for Council would be retained by the County Archivist so why does this still occur with electronic recordings.
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