Your Ref: / 1-669660362
Please ask for: / Stuart Taylor
Telephone No: / 0121 569 3715
Email: /
Date: / 20/05/2014
Dear Mr Magher,
Freedom of Information Request for Review
Thank you for your e-mail dated 17th of April and asking for the Council to review its response to your Freedom of Information request (ref. 1-662921188).
Please find below the council’s response to the points you raised in your request for review; we have also attached the documents you requested.
1. You appear to have misunderstood my request which was the identity of the social media companies you “followed” as part of the alleged “consultation” e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc. In a different part of your reply you refer specifically to the council’s own Facebook and Twitter accounts and to Twitter (but not Facebook) in general. For the avoidance of any doubt, were these the only three social media outlets allegedly trawled for comment? (I assume, therefore, that you did not follow other media, e.g. the comments section of the Express and Star online).
We had construed your enquiry to be asking whether the council had hired a third party to externally monitor the social media sites. Now that you have clarified the scope of your request, I can advise that we took into account comments made directly to the council via Twitter and Facebook, as well as other tweets not directed at the council but that mentioned The Public.
I can also confirm that we reviewed the comments posted on the online forums of the local newspaper The Express and Star as well as those made on the website of The Public.
2. I assume from this reply that no formal statistical collation of information was undertaken? How many “officers reviewed comments”? Were these “officers” just those within the council’s communications unit (sic)?
There are a range of recognised social research methods that can be applied when seeking to understand and analyse people's views and opinions/media content. These range from highly quantitative approaches (which you refer to as statistical/scientific) and the more qualitative, which involve a systematic 'reading' of people's expressed views or media content to provide a 'feel' for values and opinions. Each approach and its associated tools has its strength and weaknesses; a combination of the two approaches is often recognised as the best approach, which is what was implemented in this case and can be seen in the attached reports disclosed in response to your question 5 below.
The council did not base the consultation on comments available on social media websites only; the petition submitted to the council and print media articles were also taken into account. Whilst the former were reviewed qualitatively, the latter were subject to a quantitative analysis.
The teams involved in the consultation and the analysis were those in the change project team based in the Leisure and Culture service area in regular dialogue with the Communications team and other relevant colleagues in the council.
At least five officers were involved at different times and in different aspects of the analysis conducted.
3. I cannot see that your reply “see answer to question 2” helps in any way. Are you simply saying that individual officers formed ad hoc opinions on no scientific statistical basis for this alleged “consultation”? Please confirm.
Where the assessment was qualitative (for social media comments), officers carried out a systematic 'reading' of people's expressed views or media content to provide a 'feel' for values and opinions, as explained in our answer to question 2 above.
4. Again, you appear to have misinterpreted the original request. Obviously Facebook and Twitter are in the public domain (although certain accounts can be private). I did not ask what comments were made, I asked which of those comments Sandwell Council COLLATED. If it is the case that no proper scientific statistical collation of information was made, please confirm and also confirm that NO records or copies of individual Facebook, Twitter comments was kept (in any format) separate from those on the Council’s own Facebook and Twitter accounts?
The Communications Unit formally collated comments for review. Please find these comments attached. Informal reviews were also undertaken but not collated, and we therefore do not hold any documentation for those.
Please note that these are not comments made by the council or employees thereof; the document provided is a collation of comments made by members of the public and, as such does not reflect the council's views. As the document provided to you contains the names of individuals, we would not expect the information provided to be further disclosed or published.
5. If no proper scientific statistical evidence was made then it begs the question how officers “contributed” to the Cabinet Report – The Fundamental Review (sic)”? Please disclose a copy of “the contribution” forthwith.
(I should add here that I have made a separate Freedom of Information request on 9th April, 2014 for disclosure of the whole “Fundamental Review” document etc but there is no reason why this highly specific and long-standing request cannot be answered forthwith).
As explained in questions 2 and 3, both a qualitative and quantitative analysis were carried out.
We have attached the consultation summary document which was produced to support the Cabinet report of the 15/10/13, it is a summary of a very extensive piece of work undertaken to ensure all views were understood. We continued to analyse and consult after the 15 October and that was critical in shaping the negotiations and developments of the agreement over the two months leading up to the signing in December.
6. This answer is not understood at all. Either there were records kept or there were not. You state, contrary to the answers to questions 1 – 4, that SMBC “holds the information you have requested.” I have asked in (5) above for a copy of the “contribution” made to the Cabinet report. If there are, IN FACT, documents that were collated to inform that contribution I fail to see why you allege that complying with this request would take over 18 hours to collate? They will have been collated already. Surely you have a document, spreadsheet or such like available for immediate release. I repeat (1) & (2) above.
You requested "any other documents or reports submitted to council members or senior council officers". The council construed this to encompass any e-mail between officers and/or Cabinet members as well as any internal information. We uphold our decision not to disclose such documents on the grounds that it would take us over 18 hours to locate, retrieve and provide you with the information requested, as outlined in our response dated 19th March 2014. Nevertheless, we are able to disclose the contribution to the Cabinet report (see our answer to question 5 above).
You also refer to thousands of “e-mails” which again begs the question whether you were ALSO collating information there from. If that is indeed the case, please state (again) whether any scientific statistical analysis of “e-mails” was made and whether any separate documentation was kept in respect of same. If so, please release same as part of this request. If not, please clarify the relevance of your comments about e-mails to this specific FoI request. Did you inform senders of e-mails (which are not generally in the public domain) that their private comments were being collated as part of an alleged “consultation” process and, if so, how did you do this?
The thousands of e-mails referred to consist of correspondence between council officers and Cabinet members, and do not include e-mails from members of the public. The aforementioned e-mails did not contain any comments from members of the public in relation to the potential uses for The Public. Therefore, we did not collate information there from.
Members of the public needed not be informed that private comments were being collated, as no such process took place.
6 & 7. I note with concern that people innocently commenting on matters via Facebook and Twitter are liable to have their comments “farmed” by SMBC and used for alleged “consultation” purposes without their knowledge or consent and, indeed, without SMBC informing them or the companies concerned that such an operation is in progress. I again repeat the request for SMBC to identify the specific individuals whose comments were “farmed” in this way;
As you will be aware, the comments the council relied on and reviewed were posted on social media or newspapers' websites, all publicly and freely available. Members of the public who chose to post such comments did so willingly and knowing the information would be readily available. They obviously sought the comments posted on the council's social media pages and/or feeds to be taken into account by the council and could therefore reasonably expect their comments to be subject to further use or reviewing. Those members of the public who did not wish to be identified by the comments they posted could easily use a pseudonym to comment anonymously.
Furthermore, the Council informed the commenters via its Facebook page and Twitter feed that their comments were being passed on to the relevant officers, as you can see below:
As a result, members of the public not only could expect, but were pro-actively made aware that their comments were read and re-used. The council is, therefore, satisfied that its subsequent use of comments was in total compliance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998, as all comments freely available and in the public domain.
You will find the names of the commenters you requested in our response to your question 4 above.
8. Noted! I am surprised that council officers are apparently spending long periods of time monitoring Facebook & Twitter as part of their “normal duties”. I would have thought that for efficient time management purposes alone this should be monitored but clearly it is not by senior SMBC managers.
There is one other point arising from your initial response to which I take very grave exception. You volunteer that “the impact of the consultation (of which the alleged social media review was supposedly a part) can clearly be seen in the final form of the Concordat which has been released”. Mr Frank Caldwell of SMBC made this comment on 19th March, 2014 in the full knowledge that he personally had purported to release the “Concordat” much earlier on 27th February, 2014 and that the “Concordat” documentation had been so heavily-redacted so as to have been rendered entirely meaningless. Indeed, I had already put in a Request for an Internal Review relating to the redacted documents 5 days BEFORE he made this disingenuous comment i.e. on 14th March, 2014. This sort of thing is totally unacceptable and I specifically reserve the right to draw it to the attention of the Information Commissioner in ANY event and irrespective of the outcome of this request.
We note your comment and refer to our response to your request for a review with regards to the disclosure of the Concordat dated 11th April 2014. Furthermore, the impact of that consultation can clearly be demonstrated in Schedule 5, pages 130 to 147 of the concordat (not redacted) in which there is legally binding commitment to deliver outputs and full public access in relation to:
- An arts café and an arts events;
- Wider community learning;
- Business support.
This is further elaborated on pages 5 to 7 (not redacted) in outlining the general principles on which the partnership will work. An extensive consultation process with over 25 major organisations involved has been central to how we have taken this project forward given the current financial climate that Local Authorities find themselves in.
I hope this satisfactorily answers your query.
If you are not content with the outcome of an internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.
Yours sincerely,
Stuart Taylor
Corporate Information Governance Manager
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
[IL1: PROTECT]
Legal and Governance Services
Sandwell Council House, Oldbury, Sandwell, West Midlands B69 3DE