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Freedom of Information Requests

Freedom of Information requests can be made to any public body in Wales, and a huge amount of information can be obtained. For this website, the information compiled is mainly generated by a combination of viewing Council websites and by FOI requests. By doing so, I aim to remove any potential unfairness caused by a quote given by an inexperienced junior worker.  FOI requests are governed by a number of legal requirements set down by the Government, in particular requests must be answered within twenty working days.

I’ve done several batches of requests to all 22 Welsh Councils for statistics on stray dogs, policy on stray dog payments and revenue budgets. All of these requests have been clearly and politely made, and where possible I’ve directed them straight to the FOI Officer (where this information is clearly given on a Council’s website). All requests are made by email and specifically request information to be provided in the same way (though I provide my home address and telephone number).  I'm mindful of the extra work involved by Council officers; the information I've requested is generally simple statistics, basic information on revenue budgets or clarification on policy - nothing complex or unnecessarily detailed. 

Council financial years work from April to March, so by waiting until July, there should be no year end problems with stray dog figures not being compiled. As with previous FOI requests, responses have varied considerably and it is this that I wanted to highlight. For previous requests, I’ve sometimes had to wait months for basic data, and it’s not uncommon to have to escalate complaints to Chief Officer or Chief Executive level before information is provided.

There is an argument for saying that much of this information should be provided anyway on Council websites and in England, the Westminster government is encouraging Councils to be far more transparent with the publishing of financial and other information. Sadly there’s no indication of this approach to openness and transparency in Wales. With web publishing being such a relatively low cost option these days, I’m struggling to see what the problem is. I certainly wouldn’t advocate any requirement for paper based documentation.

My most recent request was to all Welsh Councils, and was made on 13th July 2011, which means that the deadline for information to be returned was 10th August 2011.
The text sent to all Councils is this:-

Dear Sir/Madam,
I wish to make a request for the following information under the FOI scheme.
For the financial year 2010/11, please supply :-
• The total number of stray dogs dealt with (preferably broken down by month, if possible)
Of these, please enumerate which are : Returned directly to owner, of those kennelled, those collected by the owner, those rehomed, those put down, and any other destinations.
Please enumerate any puppies born in kennels.
• What is the total revenue budget for the stray dog service for the financial year 2010/11 and for 2011/12? Has the service had to undergo any service restrictions in light of the current financial climate?
• Are stray dog kennelling services provided in house or by a contractor?
• If services are in house, has any market testing been done in the past three years or are there plans to undertake any?
• If services are provided by a contractor, when are they due for renewal?
Thank you for this information. I’d be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt of this email. Please reply by email and do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further clarification.
If some information can be provided quickly, I am happy to receive it in advance of the full response.

Mrs. K Woodhouse

The only thing I’ve removed from the above is my address at the top and the date.

I’ve put together a table which shows the responses I’ve had so far.

Only ten Councils were able to provide the information requested in the correct form within the deadline – that’s 45.45%. Is it just me or is that a shocking indictment of the sloppy way Welsh local government manages its correspondence, and the low regard it has for its customers?

A further ten sent information within the deadline, but answers were incomplete or just plain wrong. For example, both Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil sent figures for previous years rather than the one requested. If I hadn’t already had the previous figures to compare with, and had carefully checked each answer as it arrived, I would never have known these figures were wrong. Merthyr didn’t even apologise when they sent out the corrected figures, and had to be chased to provide them.

I am also utterly baffled by Caerphilly’s determination to send out paper based communication when I had specifically requested an email response. A letter will incur printing and postage costs that an email will not.

Most worrying of all, is that at the time of writing (26th August 2011) I am still waiting for a partial answer from Cardiff Council and haven’t received ANY information from Gwynedd. Gwynedd explained the delay when it was queried by saying that their officers have been on holiday for the past two months. I swear I am not making this up – I really couldn’t be that brazen to fulfil every cliché about the slowness of Councils. I escalated my Gwynedd complaint to the Chief Executive of the Council last week. You probably won’t be surprised to know that Harry Thomas was away on holiday, so his charming PA valiantly sent me a very polite apology and told me that the Head of Environmental Health would be looking into the matter. I’m still waiting for this mythical beast to contact me – presumably he also is enjoying a lengthy summer break.

And let’s not forget what we’re dealing with here – nothing complex, no lengthy trawls through historical archives. Just simple figures on the dogs dealt with last year, and how much money they spend while doing it. These should be used by every service manager on a regular basis, assessing trends, monitoring hotspots, driving efficiencies. The fact that these figures are so difficult to come by suggests that they are not being used by service managers.

And in the bigger picture, Wales is poised later this year to produce legislation on breeding dogs which will almost certainly push microchipping as part of the planned programme. Issues around stray dogs and their management are timely, and Councils themselves should be looking at these figures to assess the impact of legislative changes. That’s exactly why I’m chasing the numbers, so I can run some assessments and forecasts on an all Wales basis. You might even reasonably expect that Welsh local Councils would share this level of data with each other – again, looking at legislative impacts and being prepared. That’s a reasonable expectation but unfortunately it’s wrong. No such sharing is taking place, and not even WG are looking at this detail in the data. 

Update - 4th October.     Gwynedd supplied their information on 31st August 2011. 

Cardiff supplied a partial answer in August.  I emailed again on 1st September to ask about the remainder - no reply.  I have emailed again today for a follow up. 

Caerphilly were sent a request on 24th July regarding their kill policies for dogs.  As of today, still no reply.  I have sent another follow up email.  

Just to add also that I recently attended the recent Cross Sectoral Animal Welfare Group Meeting hosted by WG, where representatives of local authorities, voluntary bodies, vets etc met and discussed matters of interest.  A senior local government representative who was present actually highlighted the issue of FOI requests and asked that welfare groups should stop sending requests, since it was burdensome for local Councils to supply the information.  A lively discussion followed and one positive step that came out was an agreement to meet to discuss the provision of a common set of shared stray dog figures each year - something I'd wholeheartedly support.  The same representative also expressed her concern about publicising sensitive information such as the number of dogs killed by each local Council, saying it might upset people.  From my own point of view, I'd be delighted if it does, since that might lead to some questions and scrutiny on what is otherwise a very murky subject.  No Council that has acted responsibly has anything to fear - in fact, many should be very proud of the very low figures for dogs that are killed.  This website will continue to provide detailed statistics and information on policies for all Welsh Councils and where there are relevant issues I'll be happy to include them.   My starting point is, and will remain, that any discussion on stray dogs should start with freely available data on the scale of the problem - if local authorities are reluctant to provide it, then it will be publicised by this site.  

Page updated on 4th October 2011  

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