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Sent to the Chairmen of my district and county councils...
Dear Sir
RE: SNOW CLEARING POLICIES AND EXCEPTIONS
I am writing to you regarding my experiences during the recent spell of bad weather which I trust you will find inspires you to improve the service you offer.
Our daughter was due to be born on 6th December 2010; and failing a natural delivery by that date we were to attend hospital to have the birth artificially induced. For reasons outside the scope of this letter, we were registered with nnn Hospital at nnn. As you can appreciate, the bad weather came at possibly the worst time; i.e. the final week of my Wife’s pregnancy. At this time, we had no idea whether or not the baby would come early. The snow fell on ugiu Crescent and oijoij Street to a depth of approximately two feet – there was no chance whatever that we would be in a position to get my Wife to the car during labour, never mind drive off the street and head to iuhihiu.
In light of our fairly unique circumstances, and in light of the fact that our district council are our employees, we telephoned the appropriate department and asked for help in clearing our street. We were effectively stonewalled; being told that County Councils set priorities for road clearing and that there was no way to divert some resources to this street – despite the fairly unique circumstances. You should note that I have serious doubts whether the Ambulance Service could have reached us safely.
I called several times in repeated attempts to pluck the heartstrings of the Council staff but to no avail. Imagine my shock and dismay then, when I walked to town to do some shopping and saw an army of people and equipment frantically working to clear the car park at blah House; a County Council building some five hundred yards from my house. So – I called the District (and was subsequently redirected to Ljhgig County Council) to be told that those resources and personnel were only employed at that site, for “Health and Safety reasons”. I am familiar with the Health and Safety at Work Act and I can assure you that it does not make any provision that clearing snow from a car park carries any less risk to employees than doing so from a road… therefore I challenge this assertion strongly and you will find that one of my requests for information below covers this.
The final part of my account relates to the conflict between Kjihu County and HJigiutd District; each of which stated bluntly that the other was responsible for deciding where resources for clearing snow were deployed; and neither of whom were willing to even consider making an effort to arrange an exception to the normal policy in this fairly unique case. Eventually, a few men with salt and shovels turned up, made some disparaging comments, dumped a shovelful of salt on the road outside our house, and left. A large snowplough was sent but was clearly not the appropriately sized equipment for the street and could not access it.
I would be grateful if you would immediately respond to my request which begins with the second page of this communication. I would be further grateful if you would ensure that there is a publicly available telephone number which can be used by people in these exceptional circumstances to arrange for positive action to be immediately taken to assist them.
Yours sincerely,
======================================
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
FROM
MR PEBBLE GIGGLE, JKIUIIU DISTRICT RESIDENT
DIRECTED TO
OIOHOIH COUNTY COUNCIL
AND
OIUOIHVFT DISTRICT COUNCIL
MADE UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF
THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000
Both Respondents should respond independantly to this request for information in full.
1. Please supply information relating to the management infrastructure surrounding the handling of extreme weather conditions specifically to include:
a. Which person or post is the authority responsible for policy in this area;
b. Which person, committee or post has responsibility for making on the spot decisions during related operations;
c. How are those decisions communicated to operations staff and is there a system for communicating urgencies and priorities relating to each instruction;
d. Which person or post has the authority to make decisions regarding exceptions to this policy and what procedure needs to be invoked to initiate one of these decisions;
e. Specify the method by which this procedure can be invoked by a Council service user such as a resident or a corporate entity.
2. Please specify how much money from the Council Tax which OIOoiji and IUIUNoo residents pay is allocated to the following activities and resources, expressed as both a cash figure and a percentage of total Council spending:
a. Clearing the car parks of District and County Council premises to enable employees to park at work;
b. Purchasing equipment which is subsequently used at only one site when it is perfectly suitable for use in multiple locations on various tasks (for instance and specifically the tractor used at Lawn View House);
c. Purchasing Christmas decorations which are subsequently used on the outside of Council buildings (for instance flashing snowflakes in the stairwell of Jkh kjnkj House).
3. Please specify the justification (including detailed references to specific pieces of legislation and/or rules under which Council employees/contractors/service providers operate) for withholding the use of the tractor at Ooibu Lauau House on public tasks. Specifying “For heath and safety reasons” is not a sufficient response; for a satisfactory response you should give detailed justification with reference to specific levels of assessed risk. The actual documented risk assessments and method statements relating to use of the tractor would be a useful appendix to the response. It should be pointed out that to deny the use of a resource on a specific task for “health and safety reasons”, a specific task-based risk assessment MUST have been carried out by a suitably qualified person and appropriately documented.
If the justification is not related to health and safety, please supply a detailed and appropriate response to the “sense” of the original enquiry – why are these resources depoloyed only on a single site when they are publicly funded and could therefore be used on public tasks?
If as I suspect your employee fabricated the whole story as regards the use of the tractor at Lkjloi lkjhoihw House, please supply information related to the intended use of this equipment and whether it could indeed be deployed for public use prior to being deployed for use in a Council Building car park.
Dear Sir
RE: SNOW CLEARING POLICIES AND EXCEPTIONS
I am writing to you regarding my experiences during the recent spell of bad weather which I trust you will find inspires you to improve the service you offer.
Our daughter was due to be born on 6th December 2010; and failing a natural delivery by that date we were to attend hospital to have the birth artificially induced. For reasons outside the scope of this letter, we were registered with nnn Hospital at nnn. As you can appreciate, the bad weather came at possibly the worst time; i.e. the final week of my Wife’s pregnancy. At this time, we had no idea whether or not the baby would come early. The snow fell on ugiu Crescent and oijoij Street to a depth of approximately two feet – there was no chance whatever that we would be in a position to get my Wife to the car during labour, never mind drive off the street and head to iuhihiu.
In light of our fairly unique circumstances, and in light of the fact that our district council are our employees, we telephoned the appropriate department and asked for help in clearing our street. We were effectively stonewalled; being told that County Councils set priorities for road clearing and that there was no way to divert some resources to this street – despite the fairly unique circumstances. You should note that I have serious doubts whether the Ambulance Service could have reached us safely.
I called several times in repeated attempts to pluck the heartstrings of the Council staff but to no avail. Imagine my shock and dismay then, when I walked to town to do some shopping and saw an army of people and equipment frantically working to clear the car park at blah House; a County Council building some five hundred yards from my house. So – I called the District (and was subsequently redirected to Ljhgig County Council) to be told that those resources and personnel were only employed at that site, for “Health and Safety reasons”. I am familiar with the Health and Safety at Work Act and I can assure you that it does not make any provision that clearing snow from a car park carries any less risk to employees than doing so from a road… therefore I challenge this assertion strongly and you will find that one of my requests for information below covers this.
The final part of my account relates to the conflict between Kjihu County and HJigiutd District; each of which stated bluntly that the other was responsible for deciding where resources for clearing snow were deployed; and neither of whom were willing to even consider making an effort to arrange an exception to the normal policy in this fairly unique case. Eventually, a few men with salt and shovels turned up, made some disparaging comments, dumped a shovelful of salt on the road outside our house, and left. A large snowplough was sent but was clearly not the appropriately sized equipment for the street and could not access it.
I would be grateful if you would immediately respond to my request which begins with the second page of this communication. I would be further grateful if you would ensure that there is a publicly available telephone number which can be used by people in these exceptional circumstances to arrange for positive action to be immediately taken to assist them.
Yours sincerely,
======================================
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
FROM
MR PEBBLE GIGGLE, JKIUIIU DISTRICT RESIDENT
DIRECTED TO
OIOHOIH COUNTY COUNCIL
AND
OIUOIHVFT DISTRICT COUNCIL
MADE UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF
THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000
Both Respondents should respond independantly to this request for information in full.
1. Please supply information relating to the management infrastructure surrounding the handling of extreme weather conditions specifically to include:
a. Which person or post is the authority responsible for policy in this area;
b. Which person, committee or post has responsibility for making on the spot decisions during related operations;
c. How are those decisions communicated to operations staff and is there a system for communicating urgencies and priorities relating to each instruction;
d. Which person or post has the authority to make decisions regarding exceptions to this policy and what procedure needs to be invoked to initiate one of these decisions;
e. Specify the method by which this procedure can be invoked by a Council service user such as a resident or a corporate entity.
2. Please specify how much money from the Council Tax which OIOoiji and IUIUNoo residents pay is allocated to the following activities and resources, expressed as both a cash figure and a percentage of total Council spending:
a. Clearing the car parks of District and County Council premises to enable employees to park at work;
b. Purchasing equipment which is subsequently used at only one site when it is perfectly suitable for use in multiple locations on various tasks (for instance and specifically the tractor used at Lawn View House);
c. Purchasing Christmas decorations which are subsequently used on the outside of Council buildings (for instance flashing snowflakes in the stairwell of Jkh kjnkj House).
3. Please specify the justification (including detailed references to specific pieces of legislation and/or rules under which Council employees/contractors/service providers operate) for withholding the use of the tractor at Ooibu Lauau House on public tasks. Specifying “For heath and safety reasons” is not a sufficient response; for a satisfactory response you should give detailed justification with reference to specific levels of assessed risk. The actual documented risk assessments and method statements relating to use of the tractor would be a useful appendix to the response. It should be pointed out that to deny the use of a resource on a specific task for “health and safety reasons”, a specific task-based risk assessment MUST have been carried out by a suitably qualified person and appropriately documented.
If the justification is not related to health and safety, please supply a detailed and appropriate response to the “sense” of the original enquiry – why are these resources depoloyed only on a single site when they are publicly funded and could therefore be used on public tasks?
If as I suspect your employee fabricated the whole story as regards the use of the tractor at Lkjloi lkjhoihw House, please supply information related to the intended use of this equipment and whether it could indeed be deployed for public use prior to being deployed for use in a Council Building car park.
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