Here are the three earlier blog posts re: the dangerous situation in Reading.  It should be noted that the CEO of Reading Council has “adopted radio silence” and has been in touch to say he will not be making any public statements, nor will he be corresponding with the writer of this blog.

1 An emergency safeguarding message has been left with our representative on Wirral Council, Seacombe Councillor Adrian Jones

2 The causal link between a Wirral Council failure and a safeguarding emergency

3 Safeguarding Emergency. An updating email to Councillor Jo Lovelock, Leader of Reading Council

Below is a submission to the First Tier Information Tribunal we made in 2013

The original FOI decision notice we were appealing had in our opinion made many glaring errors.  The Information Commissioner had only succeeded in facilitating and encouraging the dangerous situation that has now arisen at Reading Council i.e. an EMERGENCY SAFEGUARDING THREAT to thousands of vulnerable citizens served by the council’s Adult Social Care Department.

This department is now led by one-time Wirral Social Services Assistant Director, Maura Noone, who was never disciplined for her key part in a disgraceful, abusive episode.

Instead she was allowed to leave by CEO James Wilkie days before the release of a crucial report which would have implicated her.

She was then quickly gagged inside a compromise agreement, paid off with £110,000 in public money, and given a positive work reference before being shown the door.

Here is our submission to the tribunal in full…

The judge, Chris Hughes, appeared not to consider the points I’d raised  and found against us.

Here is a link to the original blog post written about Noone / Fowler which covers the original FOI request that was made in 2012, how Wirral Council’s disability discrimination was found, and much more:

Tribunal decision – ‘Personal Privacy’ trumps the wellbeing of Wirral’s learning disabled citizens

And here is a link to the ICO website and the decision notice we were appealing.  In light of the most recent developments, which were predicted and cautioned about in the above submission to the court, readers will be able to clearly see where the regulator, despite his obvious expertise, systematically failed to appreciate the depth and seriousness of Wirral Council’s failure, describing it as ‘mistakes and errors’.

Not only this, but the very real threat to public safety, which was foreseeable back then and has now come to pass.

Despite the warnings that were clearly spelled out to them, the dangerous situation which has arisen now in Reading is a result of these top officials closing ranks, covering their ears, protecting each other’s backs, blindly ticking boxes, issuing torrents of copious weasel words for public consumption, and ultimately……

…..failing in their statutory duty (all over again) to protect vulnerable citizens.

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2012/774398/fs_50438500.pdf

Update on 23rd January 2021

From 8 years ago today…in the Wirral News.

Below, two screenshots from a truly EPIC FOI request placed with Wirral Council, who took ten months to respond…