National Distribution – URGENT information – 1 January 2010

Ever wondered WHY ? Common Purpose Exposed

An as yet unnamed elite, lawless organisation is actually running the country

by stealth, in effect a silent insurrection from within. The control must be total,
absolute, and lead top-down from the centre. What and who cannot be
controlled must be destroyed . This unelected cult cadre bypasses
Parliament, the Judiciary, local democracy, and all the institutional safeguards
that were designed to ensure our freedoms, especially free speech.

All that nulabor has done is to create and maintain the illusion of devolution,
whilst imposing ever stronger central control. Throughout the country, from
1992 onwards, there has been the setting up of community based
consultation and activity groups, such as community forums, that gave the
appearance of meaningful engagement with citizens. What was really
happening was that these groups were strictly controlled, placemen were
imposed, local people ousted, and puppets padded out the group. Then false
claims of representation of the community were made. Any existing,
genuinely bottom-up, and self-managing community group that did not
accede to ( forum ) control were destroyed and replaced. In effect, the
government was consulting with itself.

The above process was then repeated in all local, area-wide, city and
regional control structures. The controlled community groups ( for example,
forums ) were grouped into controlled alliances ( for want of a better word ).
These alliances were grouped into associations, then assemblies, and so on
in an unbroken chain to No10, via quangos, Regional Development
Associations, Regional Government Offices, etc. Another reason for the
creation of these groups is that they can be controlled in networks, meeting
and making decisions outside of the democratic structures ( and illegally in
many cases ), leading beyond their authority, imposing influence, interest and
control beyond their legal remit, and thus creating the impression of delivering
on an otherwise undeliverable policy.

Over the years, citizens have become increasingly disengaged, and the
voting figures have plummeted.

There have been attempts to re-engage citizens in politics, for example, the
Baroness Kennedy consultation, and the introduction of the doomed
Sustainable Communities Act. Why doomed? Because the same tactics, are
still being employed, by the same people. Lies, deceit, smoke and mirrors,
manipulation of meetings, are but a few of the tactics to ensure top-down
control, whilst falsely claiming representation. The current government
initiatives are simply ‘ more of the same ’ dressed differently.

The whole social re-engineering project needed vast quantities of money.

Government matched EU funds were used.

The above is now used as a national template for any national or local
government consultation.

The corruption is absolute, lead from the top down, imposed through all tiers
of social and government control, down to street level. Being rotten to the
core and from the core, everything it touches it taints. Having neither the
ability nor inclination to correct itself, outside intervention is indicated.

In the UK, democracy is dead. Despite the claims to devolve democracy,

empower people, or derogate decision-making, what we have seen is the
creation and maintenance of an illusion of consultation, followed by false
claims of consensus. In truth, central control is tightened, as so-called
community leaders are politically placed and imposed, and so on upwards
through every control tier to nulabor.

Meanwhile, it is daily reported how our leaders lie, cheat, steal, bully and
abuse, yet there is a reticence - for fear of retribution - to using the
appropriate description - institutionalised corruption - that has repeatedly,
relentlessly, ruthlessly, systematically and cynically destroyed the lives of
anyone arbitrarily deemed to be a potential threat.

It is an expensive business to run an insurrectionist alternative power cult in

parallel with what the ordinary decent citizen perceives as democracy.
However, any perception of local democracy, people empowerment, or
meaningful engagement in consultation to inform and contribute to the
decision-making processes is a carefully engineered illusion.

It is necessary to create control structures, finance them, then train people to

head these, to pay for fixers, and to employ the myriad of minions in the non-
jobs. The money from this comes from both the current central government,
and from the billions of Eurofunds. These created structures are used to
facilitate the falsification of evidence of prior consultation and consensus
needed for eligibility for the funds. To staff these structures, and to ensure
placement of the chosen people in the right places, there needs to be
centrally controlled leadership training establishment, working as a charity.
The truth is, the training establishment is not training leaders at all, it is doing
the opposite, training automatons to do the bidding of their masters,
regardless of morality, ethics or the law.

Why a charity? Because charities do not attract the same level of cynicism
and scrutiny as public authorities, they are not subject to freedom of
information laws, they are easy and naive prey for the elite, and charities are
easy organisations for strategic positioning to exert influence, interest and
control far beyond their legal remit.

In addition, where the chosen leaders are placed in a charity positioned for
strategic control, they form the perfect base for money-laundering. Where
existing charities can't be taken over, they are destroyed, and new charities
created. Where charities prove themselves to be providing a needed service,
they are targeted for privatisation, and the tax-liable jobs falsely claimed to be
employment creation. There is no job creation, just transfer.

The secretly chosen recipients of 'training' are to be found in highly lucrative

positions of many of the decision-making quangos with financial controls.
They also ensure that the social-re-engineering projects are funded in
preference to any other, whilst refusing any applications not in keeping with
the agenda.

Once the right steps are in place, the project can continue unfettered, having
control of people, publicity, processes, and pecuniary pursuits. Threats are
destroyed. All this being done covertly, with the cadre elite of the cult even
deciding who can have what information.

This statement can be extended to democracy itself. Perhaps it is not only the
government that must be replaced, but the style of government, as the
current flavour leaves such a bad taste. Our leading politicians, to whom we
are entitled to look for behavioural guidance, have failed to make the
distinction between what is legal and what it right. Finding a loophole to do
something does not make what is wrong, right. The very act of looking for a
loophole is evidence of intent to act amorally. It is no use saying that no rules
have been broken, and therefore the behaviour is OK. Those not acting in the
spirit of the law, or not capable of making the distinction between right and
wrong, have no place in our society, and certainly not as our leaders or
representatives in any government.

So now we have described what we have today, and how we arrived at this
sorry state.
The next question must be, WHY ? and Where is all this leading us?

As for those who would expose this corruption, any one arbitrarily deemed to
be a potential threat is subjected to a policy of Control or Destroy, and
ruthlessly, remorselessly and relentlessly abused.

Why is are they seemingly deliberately doing everything it can to ensure the
development of those conditions that give rise to disorder, social unrest, riots,
insurrection and even revolution ?

If the people should react as being driven, this gives excuse to impose a
dictatorship - which is, by and large, what we have had for the past several
years, with increasing impositions upon the freedoms of citizens.

To date, every law introduced for security reasons has been used against the
citizens, for no other reason than for preservation of power.

This corrupt cult understands the importance of controlling the flow of

information and stifling debate. It is pure paranoia and desperation on their
part of to censor public criticism.

This nulabor cadre has declared war upon it citizens. Government has
become the enemy of the state. Last time this happened, heads rolled,
literally.

Sorting expenses is like moving the proverbial deck chairs. Is there any
aspect of government that is not tainted?

Below is an update to recent developments.

Be warned, it is uncompromising, blunt and disturbing.

If the reports are to be believed, and they must be, this obscenity is being
repeated throughout the country.

Update to Common Purpose – Sheffield and Nationally.

Sheffield is chosen because it is the recognised corruption capital of Europe.

The statutory obligation to declare, child protection issues, no CRB checks,
no risk assessments, bypassing democratic processes, insider dealing, non-
compliance with FoIA, criminal prosecutions. 291109

Distribution: Ministry of Justice, Charity Commission, Department of

Education, Ofsted, CRB, etc. (CRB checks - Reference number 6675 )

For the attention of Christine Gilbert and Robert Lester – ofsted

For the attention of Norman Turpin – CRB

Tim Loughton, Dawn Primarolo, Baroness Delyth Morgan, Greg Hurst(Times)

One reason why this issue was raised was because of the reaction to a
question raised on 5 November 2008 at the meeting of the Full Council at
Sheffield City Council.

The question was:

7 the third party encourages its members to identify 12-15 year olds for
grooming before placement for so-called training without any evidence of
having carried out the statutory criminal safety checks

The reply of council Leader Paul Scriven was:

"You have made serious allegations about child abuse”

The local newspaper, a corporate sponsor of Common Purpose along with

Sheffield City Council, published two wildly inaccurate and sensational
articles about the citizen. The Star, despite a futile attempt at 'beating the rap'
with the Press Complaints Commission, apologised for saying that the citizen
had been banned from asking questions, but did not apologise for printing the
lie that about the serious allegations of child abuse. This was because The
Star had accurately quoted verbatim the words of Paul Scriven. Despite the
incident being witnessed by over 100 people, a formal complaint against Paul
Scriven was rigged by the council Executive, who are themselves involved
with Common Purpose, but did not declare their interest.

A year on, the third party, identified as Common Purpose, continues the same
practice. Common Purpose is a registered charity.
Here is the first example of an association between Common Purpose and
child abuse. Below is a 2009 web-site screen-shot of Common Purpose using
paedophile Jamie Rennie for their publicity purposes. It refers to the Common
Purpose 360 programme, and contains links encouraging networking.

After his widely-reported conviction, the press reported:

“A well known Senior Social Worker (who has asked to remain anonymous)
told us: "These claims are of course subjective at best, and if a paedophile
has free and frank access to records of children and can come into contact
with children unsupervised [which he was able to], one cannot exclude from
the realms of possibility, that the said individual could sexually interfere with
children" "People trusted him [Rennie] due to his position within the charity
[LGBT Youth Scotland]"”

This must apply to ALL Common Purpose ‘graduates’.

Correction:

Whilst it is not accurate to say that Jamie Rennie was a member of the local
Advisory Panel of Common Purpose, it was correct to say that he was
selected by members of the Common Purpose Advisory Panel for 'training'
and for which he was recognised as a Common Purpose 'graduate'. At the
time that Jamie Rennie was carrying out his paedophile activities the
Common Purpose Advisory Board included a senior policeman and a senior
member of the local press.

It is therefore ironic that those same people would have been part of the
system that arrested and reported upon Common Purpose graduate Jamie
Rennie. It is not known whether any evidence exists showing that Common
Purpose Advisory Group Members were aware of what Jamie Rennie was
doing.

Note the date of the above screenshot.

Jamie Rennie was arrested in 2007, yet Common Purpose continued to use
his reference on their web site for their own publicity purposes and was still
there on 30 October 2009 !

Clarification:

In that area, and indeed nationally, Common Purpose has been operating its
'Your Turn' youth project for several years, including around Yorkshire. It
would therefore be appropriate for local authorities, the CRB, all government
departments, and Ofsted take joint action to ensure that all Common Purpose
youth activities were required to provide evidence that CRB checks were
carried out and that risk assessments were made. This would apply urgently
and specifically in the Jamie Rennie case, but applies nationally wherever
Common Purpose operate, not only to Your Turn projects, but all. Clearly, it is
the element of close proximity and trust with young people that attracts the
likes of Rennie.

Development:

The recent adverse publicity in the press about ofsted, for example in The
Times, may have been created for reasons other than those publicised.

It is to be expected that Ofsted is being criticised by the LGA, when so many

LGA leaders are associated with Common Purpose throughout the country,
and who in turn have allowed Common Purpose to operate unlawfully in that
their personnel delivering the youth training have not had CRB checks and
the local authorities have not carried out risk assessments.

Perhaps a 'calm measured voice' from Ofsted now, banning Common

Purpose from all further activity so as to provide protection for the children,
will counter the accusation that Ofsted is not 'protecting its own reputation',
but is in fact protecting children.

However, since last November, the council has still refused to provide any
response to this issue, other than denials. The third party continues to provide
its youth 'services' to the local councils throughout South Yorkshire.

Meanwhile, it turns out that several senior council personnel are also
associated with the third party, which meets in the Town Hall, and The Star
offices, supported by the Chief Executive of the Council and The Star. In
effect, there is an elite cabal specialising in leadership that also targets young
people to join their organisation as future leaders.

It was explained that the third party has members within the council, who
decide what courses or events shall be procured ( without any tendering
process ), and from these events target selected children as potential future
leaders and coerce them into attending these residential courses.
Both the local council and the third party refuse to answer queries about this
issue.

Neither Ofsted nor CRB services have identified any exemptions that permit
Common Purpose to operate these courses with young people without its
personnel undergoing the statutory CRB checks, or the host local authorities
carrying out the mandatory risk assessments.

All that has happened since 5 November 2008 is that the citizen has been
lambasted, publicly humiliated, lied to, bullied and harassed.

Those involved with this are also involved with Common Purpose, both within
the council and from outside of the council.

Here is another example of a connection between Common Purpose and

child abuse:

CP trained West Midlands Fire Service Chief resigns after child porn arrest
(09/07/2009) West Midlands

West Midlands Fire Service chief Frank Sheehan resigns after child
porn arrest. He took the Common Purpose 20:20 course in 1998. 20:20 is a
five-day residential programme. This high-level programme is held just twice
a year. The 20:20 week includes days in both London and Brussels visiting
key institutions in the cities and examining how they operate and who holds
power. For those interested in NLP, ( Neurolinguistic programming )
practitioners PPD Learning Ltd boast West Midlands Fire Service as one of
their clients.

Why did LibDem Leader Paul Scriven lie about that citizen as he did, when
falsely accusing that citizen of making allegations of child abuse?

Perhaps this was in his mind:

Former Deputy Mayor Jailed For Grooming Teen

A former deputy mayor has been sentenced to eight months in prison
for attempting to 'groom' a 13-year-old girl for sex.
The Lib Dem councillor, who represented Bilton on Harrogate Borough
Council and Bilton and Nidd Gorge on North Yorkshire county Council, was
also automatically disqualified from being a councillor as a result of his
sentence."

Was the above in the mind of Paul Scriven when he falsely accused that
citizen of making allegations of child abuse?

Paul Scriven then had his political spokesperson, Ian Turngoose, to provide
The Star with a litany of lies about the citizen that The Star published. The
line manager of the reporter that acutely quoted Paul Scriven sent damaging
and false material to the Press Complaints Commission in a doomed effort,
with the Council, to destroy that citizen.

A complaint was raised against Paul Scriven, which was then sabotaged by
executive council officers – who were graduates of Common Purpose !

A complaint about the behaviour of the council was made to Standards for
England, who agreed that the council has acted improperly, but refused to
intervene – they were published supporters of Common Purpose !

Johnston Press, proprietors of The Star, have continuously failed to prevent

the exposure of their paper to liability, and have also failed to support their
truthful reporter, Lucy Ashton, when Paul Scriven twice falsely made a liar out
her. Her line manager did not support her either.

Could this be because Johnston Press is a corporate sponsor of Common

Purpose? Are the Johnston Press shareholders aware of the links between
Common Purpose and the child abuse?

During 2008, and through 2009, strenuous efforts have been made to
establish who are the Common Purpose ‘graduates’ and supporters and
officers within and around Sheffield City Council. These efforts continue to be
unlawfully blocked, accompanied by futile false accusations, obfuscation, a
criminal, malicious adverse publicity campaign personally against that citizen,
and blatant, in-your-face lies. The council is confident that it has Common
Purpose ‘graduates’ in all the external organisations with purview, on whom
they can rely within their ‘network’, to ensure that publicity about their
activities remains contained. ( for example, South Yorkshire Police )

The Common Purpose ‘graduates’ are ‘trained’ at the ratepayers’

expense, carrying out their meetings and activities using ratepayer-paid time
and resources, whilst the council has admitted that there is no evidence of
any advantage to the ratepayer. This breaches the Local Government Act,
and the council has been advised of this, yet can confidently ignore the law,
knowing that they will never be held to account. The council is also obliged,
as is every organisation throughout the country that employs public servants,
to declare the membership of anyone associated with Common Purpose.

The following is a brief about the need to declare:

The Civil Service provides a definition of a secret society which clearly

includes the modus operandi of Common Purpose. Please find definitions of
a secret society below. These should prove useful in allowing members of the
public to confirm that Common Purpose graduates should declare themselves
to the public. The text also reveals the conflict of interest of Common Purpose
graduates acting as the "eyes and ears of Common Purpose".

This is aside from the fact that Common Purpose is awarded public paid
contracts by a 'nod and a wink' via their graduates within the public sector,
rather than via open tendering process. In effect, this is illegal ‘insider
trading’, which, coupled with the actions of local authorities to flout the
Freedom of Information Act, should be more than sufficient to prompt
immediate and radical action from the Audit Commission – if it wasn’t already
infected from the top down with Common Purpose !

http://beta.civilservice.gov.uk/about/work/codes/csmc/index.aspx.
Civil Service Management Code 1.1 Recruitment 1.1.6 Departments and
agencies must be satisfied that recruits are able to show that they will be able
to give satisfactory service in the future and that nothing in their more recent
past is likely to bring discredit upon the department or agency or the Civil
Service in general.
Chapter 4 Principles 4.1.3
c. civil servants must not misuse their official position or information
acquired in the course of their official duties to further their private interests or
those of others. Conflicts of interest may arise from financial interests and
more broadly from official dealings with, or decisions in respect of, individuals
who share a civil servant’s private interests (for example freemasonry,
membership of societies, clubs and other organisations, and family). Where a
conflict of interest arises, civil servants must declare their interest to senior
management so that senior management can determine how best to
proceed;

Discipline and dismissal 4.5.3 It is for departments and agencies to define

the circumstances in which initiation of disciplinary procedures may be
appropriate. It is not necessary to attempt to define every circumstance.
However departments’ and agencies’ rules for staff must make clear the
circumstances in which the application of the disciplinary procedures may be
considered, and these must include: a. breaches of the organisation’s
standards of conduct or other forms of misconduct (see paragraph 4.1.4);
and b. any other circumstances in which the behaviour, action or inaction
of individuals significantly disrupts or damages the performance or reputation
of the organisation; as well as other circumstances covered by the statutory
dispute resolution procedures.
Example of application of the above code at local authority level:

XXXXXXXXX Constitution Part 5 Codes and Protocols 2. PUBLIC DUTY,

PRIVATE INTEREST, FRAUD AND THEFT (i) General 2.1 An
employee’s public duty and private interests must not conflict. Employees
must declare any private interests relating to their public duties. 2.3
Employees must declare in writing to their Heads of Service membership of
any organisation not open to the public that requires formal membership and
oaths of allegiance and which has secrecy about rules, membership or
conduct. A definition of what constitutes a secret society as shown in
APPENDIX A.

APPENDIX A: DEFINITION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES A MEMBERSHIP OF

SECRET SOCIETY

The following is the Council’s definition of what constitutes a society with

secret rules (secret society). ‘Any lodge, chapter, society, trust or regular
gathering or meeting, which: (a) is not open to members of the public who
are not members of that lodge, chapter, society or trust; and (b) includes in
the grant of membership an obligation on the part of the member a
requirement to make a commitment (whether by oath or otherwise) of
allegiance to the lodge, chapter, society, gathering or meeting; and (c)
includes, whether initially or subsequently, a commitment (whether by oath or
otherwise) of secrecy about the rules, membership or conduct of the lodge,
chapter, society, trust, gathering or meeting. A lodge, chapter, society, trust,
gathering or meeting as defined above should not be regarded as a secret
society if it forms part of the activity of a generally recognised religion.
____________________

From the above, Common Purpose constitute a secret organisation, for which
declaration is mandatory, with possible disciplinary measures including
dismissal for non-compliance.

But Common Purpose continue to meet, imposing secrecy under Chatham

House rules, whilst local authorities continue to unlawfully refuse to disclose
who these people are.
Below are given the urgent steps needed to protect our children.

What needs to be done now and with urgency?

1. Common Purpose to be declared a proscribed organisation.

2. A list of ALL Common Purpose graduates, throughout the country, to be

immediately placed in the public domain.

3. Mandatory declarations of interest enforced wherever there are Common

Purpose graduates/associates/members/officers/etc.

4. ALL so-called ‘training’ at the expense of the public purse to cease

immediately.

5. CRB checks and risk assessments carried on ALL Common Purpose

personnel involved with youth activities, such as ‘leadership training’ and
projects such as ‘Your Turn’.

6. ALL local authorities and institutions to cease complying with Common

Purpose requests and interference that result in the unlawful and criminal
withholding of information about their membership and activities at the public
expense.

7. Government sponsorship to cease immediately, and government Cabinet

involvement to be declared, i.e. within Cabinet Office itself.

8. Charitable Status withdrawn.

Note:

The investigation into the Scottish case began in late 2007. A man who had
served time for sexually abusing a child and was on the sex offenders'
register, worked as an engineer with Crown Paints at premises in Edinburgh.
He had fitted a personal hard drive to one of the computers at his work and
either forgot to remove it or had not realised that the computer was to be sent
away for repair. A technician discovered an indecent image of a child, and
police were alerted. There was an email link that was sourced at the address
of Rennie. Operation Algebra swung into action.

The following is but one legal rationale showing why it is urgent, imperative
and mandatory for full disclosure:

http://www.localgov.co.uk/index.cfm?method=news.detail&id=83274
30 October 2009

Source: The MJ (Local government is rapidly changing - to be effective in this

environment it is essential that you have access to the most up-to-date and
detailed information. The MJ is the magazine that will help you to come up
with practical solutions to everyday issues in this changing landscape.)

Confidentiality or clarity?

Nicholas Dobson

What is more important, transparency of council accounts, or commercial

confidentiality? Nicholas Dobson looks at a High Court case which
considered just that.

If everyone saw the world our way, there wouldn’t be many disputes. For, as
the old cliché goes, we’d all then be singing from the same hymn sheets.

But they don’t, and we aren’t. So life often becomes a fierce competition.
Your ‘rights’ against mine. Your wish to party late and loud. Mine to have a
quiet night’s sleep.

Yours to build a mega home extension. Mine to object bitterly. And in current
point, yours to inspect the ‘Full Monty’ council accounts. Mine to plead
commercial confidentiality.

"Veolia contended that this information was commercially sensitive. It had

been supplied to the council confidentially, and would be valuable to
commercial competitors..."
So, someone has to decide just where the balance of rights lies. And that
often falls to the courts, as it did on 1 October 2009, when the High Court
decided that the statutory audit provisions enabling public inspection of
accounts and related material trumped any contractual provisions for
commercial confidentiality.

The case had been brought by waste management company, Veolia,

following a decision of Nottinghamshire CC to make available for public
inspection the council’s accounts, ‘together with all books, deeds, contracts,
bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them’.

A local elector, Mr Shlomo Dowen, applied to inspect and make copies of

certain documents relating to a waste-management contract between the
council and Veolia.

The council informed Veolia that it intended to make certain disputed

documents available for inspection. These included – among others –
monthly particularised invoices from Veolia to the council, the formulae by
which contract payments were made, and provisions for contract default
deductions.

Veolia contended that this information was commercially sensitive. It had

been supplied to the council confidentially, and would be valuable to
commercial competitors and contract sub-contractors. And, if any of that
information was to enter the public domain, Veolia’s ability to compete on bids
with other authorities would be damaged and its ability to hold down sub-
contract prices on the contract impaired.

The company, therefore, sought to prevent the council from disclosing the
disputed documents, save in heavily redacted form. So, just what law was
causing all the kerfuffle? Well this is Section 15 of the Audit Commission Act
1998, which at each statutory audit enables ‘any persons interested’ to
inspect the accounts to be audited and all books, deeds, contracts, bills,
vouchers and receipts relating to them.

It also enables such persons to make copies of all or any part of the accounts
and those other documents. But, while there are confidentiality provisions in
Section 15(3) and (4), these do not extend to commercial confidentiality. They
merely cover ‘personal information’, ie, that which identifies or enables the
identification of a particular individual where the auditor considers that the
information should not be inspected or disclosed.

The confidentiality provisions also cover information concerning an

individual’s office or employment and relevant payments or benefits, including
those on severance. Mr Justice Cranston noted that historically, the obligation
to pay local taxation was matched by the right given to ratepayers to an
involvement in the process of ensuring the money was well spent. This was a
mechanism of democratic accountability through involvement in the public
audit process.

Given its history, he therefore thought it ‘entirely unsurprising’ the law should
permit a local elector, such as Mr Dowen, sight of the disputed documents in
this case. For the historic role of interested persons such as local government
electors in participating in the audit process would be severely diminished
without such disclosure.

But while the judge could well understand the concern about commercial
confidentiality – which could adversely affect not only Veolia but also the
council through sub-contractor demands, once they understood Veolia’s
modelling – nevertheless, ‘the plain fact is that there is no duty to keep
commercial confidentiality in Section 15’.

For, if the section applies, the council must disclose and... the section trumps
the confidentiality obligations set out in the contract’.

In protecting personal information in Section 15(3) as described above,

Parliament had prescribed the extent to which confidential information could
be excluded from disclosure.

According to the judge, while ‘accounts’ are not defined, the 1998 Act
indicates that they are the record of the council’s financial activity over a
period and of the financial position at a particular time.
He considered it ‘plain that each of the disputed documents relate to the
council’s accounts as that phrase is to be construed in its statutory context’.
Therefore, Mr Dowen was entitled to inspect and copy the documents in
question.
It will be interesting to see to what extent this judgement dampens the
enthusiasm of external contractors in council business. But if the court ruling
endures, given the volume of lucrative local authority business – not to
mention the recession – contactors will presumably just have to learn to live
with it.

All recipients, you have had but the briefest of introductions, with but one
example of how it may be applied to your area. The same applies nationally.

Best Regards,

Stygian

What can elected members do now?

In addition to the above, here are some first steps:

- Identify all Common Purpose graduates, officers, supporters, and

ensure that all are entered on a register that is available in the public
domain.

- Refute any claims that activities associated with Common Purpose are
in any way private. Their training, meetings, and activities are all
purchased and resourced at the expense of the ratepayer, so all that
council officers do that is associated with Common Purpose must
therefore be public domain material.

- Obtain the minutes of all meetings attended by Common Purpose

graduates – these are NOT private, despite false claims to the contrary.

- Obtain from the local authority a list of all costs associated with the
activities of Common Purpose, in terms of time, fees, donations and
hospitality.
 - For each of the above, obtain the objective evidence demonstrating that
there is an advantage to the ratepayer ( saying ‘people felt’, etc is not
evidence ! )

- Determine that no-one involved with procurement, payment,

recommendation or evaluation of any Common Purpose involved
activities were themselves associated in any way with Common
Purpose

- If any contracts or services involved minors, i.e. the Your Turn project,
ensure that the council had carried out the CRB checks and held such
proofs. ( Duty of Care and Due Diligence )

- For each of the above, obtain a copy of the council minutes of meetings
at which the elected members approved of the policy relating to its
association with Common Purpose, and the extent of any delegated
authority given to officers to deliver upon that authority

- For external liaisons, such as regeneration boards, assemblies, funding

organisations, etc, obtain evidence that there was no possibility of
Insider Dealing, not least by identifying Common Purpose graduates in
those organisations.

Ps

Vexatious and irresponsible questions

Post categories: meta-requests, whatdotheyknow

Martin Rosenbaum | 08:17 UK time, Tuesday, 14 July 2009

I know from personal experience that making freedom of information requests
to public authorities is something they sometimes find irritating - but at what
point does it become vexatious or irresponsible?

This question is raised by some recent rulings on what constitutes legitimate

use of the Freedom of Information Act.

In a decision published last week, the information commissioner determined

that the local government ombudsman was right to dismiss an FOI request as
'vexatious'. This was the 48th request in a series made to the LGO by one
individual in a six-month period.

The complainant is clearly concerned about the effectiveness of local

authority complaints procedures, having submitted hundreds of FOI
applications on the topic to various authorities. However the commissioner
found his arguments "unconvincing" and "not considered to be properly
anchored in sound evidence", concluding that the "the request could fairly be
considered obsessive and manifestly unreasonable" and was therefore
vexatious.

Under the FOI Act, a request can be refused if it's vexatious, but this has to
be an issue about the request itself, not the person making it. Just because
you are a really annoying person is not sufficient grounds for turning down
your freedom of information applications.

In this case the request, along with many other requests by the same person,
was made through the whatdotheyknow site. This site is certainly regarded as
very vexing by numerous public authority FOI officers, who particularly don't
like the way it automatically publishes all the correspondence in connection
with a request.
In a different case, the High Court has just ruled that there is nothing
necessarily wrong in making a meta-request - a request about how your other
requests have been handled. The journalist Matt Davis put such a question to
the Home Office, suspecting that he was getting worse treatment than the
general public in the 48 requests he'd made to the Home Office (this was
over a two-year period).

The Home Office argued that such meta-requests "are an arguably

permissible, but irresponsible, use of the Act" which "could be used as a
'backdoor method' of obtaining information which had previously been
withheld." But these arguments were rejected by the judge, who backed the
earlier opinion of the Information Tribunal

that "meta-requests should be dealt with in the same way as any other
requests".

So if your FOI request is turned down as vexatious, is it irresponsible to put in

a meta-request about how it was handled?