Gardengate Closed!

Puntastic!

Yes, it's true, the Gardengate case is finally over, NCC have thrown in the towel. It was looking that way following their application to postpone and then going very quiet, then I got a letter Wednesday morning.

But I'd like to share with you the manner in which they graciously withdrew. I could sub-title this bit 'Sometimes It's Hard to Say You're Sorry'...

And so we'll begin. The first reason they gave was that they'd got a date wrong. Good of them to admit that because I hadn't noticed. Essentially the summons said that on 2 October 2009 I had failed to do the works required within the period on the original notice. But 2 October was in fact the last day of that period, therefore I couldn't be said to have failed to comply with the notice until 3 October. I look at it now and it does look pretty dumb. Lesson of the day, always check your dates people.

I'm not convinced that this was fatal to their case however and I can certainly think of an easy way they could have got round it if their hearts were still in it.

Secondly they forgot to mention a piece of legislation. Again, I really do wonder whether that was a deal breaker.

Anyway, now it gets more interesting as the question as to whether officers had been properly delegated powers to issue enforcement proceedings, a key plank of my defence, now arises. NCC say that, for them to argue this point they will need a witness to attend who is on leave on the day of the hearing so they would need an adjournment. I can see how this is offputting for them as they'd only just attended a hearing where they had agreed a new date. The court probably wouldn't be that sympathetic to a further request for an adjournment in those circumstances.

They then make a big point of saying that they don't accept my arguments on the delegated powers issue but more on that later.

Finally they seem to sort of blame their bottling the case on my illness but not before some huffing and puffing about how I could have got somebody else to do the work for me. But still, they graciously inform me that NCC is "willing to allow me a further opportunity" to get the work done and indicate that they'll look at it again towards the end of the year. Thanks to this change of heart (sort of), they therefore plan to offer no evidence against me and the case will be dismissed. Which is nice.

So, what do we think? Well I can't be sure but I honestly suspect that, if they were confidant that they were clear on the delegation of powers issue we wouldn't be looking at the end of the case now. They've known about my disability since before they issued the summons and they've had adequate time to take it into account. I suspect that the other reasons given are pretty minor issues that could have been dealt with quite easily, although I don't really know enough about Magistrates Court procedure to be absolutely sure.

What definitely is clear is that, should they decide that they do want to prosecute me in future they will have to start from scratch with a new notice and, as I don't have any employment tribunals coming up, I'll probably be able to rustle an appeal up this time.

However, let's just imagine a hypothetical situation where they have realised that the required powers to start enforcement proceedings HAVEN'T been properly delegated to officers just as I've argued. Leaving things to the end of the year would give the Development Control Committee enough time to either put the required delegation in place or to make a decision on enforcement action themselves. Should the DCC take either of those courses of action then that would be as clear an admission that powers weren't properly delegated before as it's possible to get, despite all the denials. As I've suggested previously, that might leave a number of NCC officers in sticky legal situations, not to mention NCC itself. Needless to say I'll be watching the comings and goings of the DCC very closely from now on.

But for now this is the first time in two years where I haven't been embroiled in some sort of legal tussle with NCC, with two years of internal wrangling before that and frankly I'm a little tired. We are talking full on career and life fuck-up here. In my honestly held opinion I don't think it's in anybody's interest for me to hear from them ever again about this.

Who knows, I might then get some peace for a while, start getting better and maybe even remember how to look after myself again.

That Chocolate Teapot I mentioned? It Just Melted

An update of the post I wrote a few weeks back on one of my Freedom of Information forays.

I was asking about the system where NCC or one of its committees decides to delegate specific powers to an individual officer. Nothing wrong with the basic idea, after all arranging a council or committee meeting is time consuming and it's inefficient to have to do so for every itty bitty little thing.

However it's a process that needs to be applied carefully and appropriately and you need to keep track of it, otherwise you could get any idiot making decisions without anybody knowing about it (stop sniggering at the back...)

Anyway, last time we looked NCC had sent me a register of officers with delegated powers, it's just that it was from 1998. This seemed a bit inadequate to me so I asked for a review.

I have now had a response to that request and it is pretty much as I suspected. That really is the most up to date record that they have. That is really fucking shocking.

There are two things that strike me about this response. The first concerns the manner in which Information Governance has confused the provision of a specific document, an up to date register which they say doesn't exist, with the provision of information. The information that I asked for clearly does exist, no council officer is given 'A' delegated powers unless it is agreed by full council or one of its committees. So details of such officers are contained in the minutes of those committees' meetings. The fact that nobody could be arsed to keep track of them in a central register is neither here nor there.

I did wonder if they would claim that the information existed but that it could only be provided at disproportionate cost. This is the one they initially tried it on with my attempts at getting info about Discretionary Housing Payments. It's a useful way for councils to dodge providing information and usually involves claiming that a search of eleventy thousand documents will be required (in reality usually a few hundred) and that each document will take 45 minutes to examine (in reality about 5. They always say 45 minutes though in order to look like they've thought about it, 'about an hour' sounds just too throwaway). They then tell you that this work will cost you £25/hour to do (in reality it's done by an admin worker on about £8/hour) and present you with an estimate for the total cost which is slightly more than the budget for their entire libraries service.

It's a win/win situation. Either they get out of putting embarrassing information into the public domain or, if you're daft enough to cough up they get a piece of work done that they should have been doing anyway and make a tidy profit to boot.

The second, and most important, aspect is that the full implication of this decision is that NOTTINGHAM CITY COUNCIL HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO IS GOING ABOUT THE PLACE EXERCISING EXECUTIVE POWERS ON ITS BEHALF.

Make no mistake this is profound. Everything that any NCC council officer does in the course of her/his job is done in the name of Nottingham City Council which in corporate terms means the councillors. Delegation of powers cuts to the heart of local government, it couldn't function otherwise and there are very long and detailed documents in the council's constitution which set out how powers must be delegated. With no up-to-date record how do we know that powers have been delegated appropriately and legally?

On a personal level, this will have an impact on my 'Gardengate' case. A significant part of my defence is that the Development Control Committee alone has the power to decide on enforcement actions as determined by the constitution adopted by full council in May 2003. NCC claims that officers involved have delegated authority to do so and have cited a committee decision made prior to the adoption of the new constitution as evidence.

To my mind this development is another nail in their argument's coffin. If we assume, safely in my view, that delegated powers can be removed as well as awarded how can NCC prove that their officers have the relevant delegated powers if no record has been kept of the comings and goings of delegation decisions since 1998?

Gardengate Case Put Back Shock

Do you see what I did there?

You know, me being prosecuted for having a scruffy garden, and everything has to have '-gate' after it? Admit it, you wish you'd written it.

Anyway, NCC's pathetic and discriminatory* revenge case** against me has been put back from tomorrow to the middle of August, on their application.

This is the second time they have applied for an adjournment, the first time was because they said they wanted to investigate whether I was disabled, then notoriously came back to the renewed hearing claiming that I wasn't because I hadn't got a social worker.

I have no idea why they asked for this second postponement. It may have something to do with my submitting evidence and legal arguments which presumably foxed them. After all, NCC's legal services clearly know nothing about employment, tenancy or disability discrimination law so it would be no surprise to find out that they know nothing about town and country planning law either. I'll update this if I get any clue as to their reasons.

One of my arguments is that the officers who have been pursuing and prosecuting me don't have authority to do so under NCC's constitution. If that turns out to be correct it means there is a very strong argument that their actions constitute criminal harassment as they would no longer have lawful reason for those actions. I can't see why the individual officers couldn't be prosecuted for that. One or two people might need to start sweating.

* My problems looking after my garden stem from mental health problems which NCC refuse to recognise or take into account, putting them in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.

** NCC are pretty clearly trying to get me back for a) blogging about them and b) exposing their solicitors and management (especially useless fat-arse Lisa Black) at an Employment Tribunal for being grossly incompetent and/or dishonest bullies. They tried to claim that I wasn't disabled then as well.

Ignorance About Mental Health Problems as Disability

The Daily Mail recently carried an article written by Janet Street-Porter which argued that depression was just the latest of a series of trendy diseases. I hesitate to link to it but I decided I would as it is important that you realise what determinedly ignorant, shit-for-brains, mind-bendingly fuck-witted verbal slurry that this massively overrated boat-faced honking old sow has managed to get published in that cretinous reactionary shitrag. Believe me, if I were to happen across this knowledge vacuum and she was merrily aflame not a drop of my precious urine would be used in preventing her painful fiery death.

Ok, maybe I would if I'd just been given three wishes and I'd cashed one of them in for an ability to piss petrol.

Obviously local councils have more awareness than someone like that no? Well, in NCC's case, not by much.

You may remember that NCC currently sees prosecuting me for having an overgrown garden as a viable use of public funds at present, even though it is less than interested in keeping its own house in order. The case was adjourned for them to investigate whether I am a disabled person or not, a fact of which they are more than aware.

If they genuinely didn't know the answer to this question (which they do because the employment tribunal told them) then you'd have thought that the best thing to do would be to contact me for information, maybe even seek permission to obtain further evidence. They didn't do this.

The date of the rehearing approached and I dutifully trotted down to the magistrates court to face my doom.

NCC's solicitor calmly explained to the magistrates that I wasn't a disabled person because she had contacted the council's adult care service (i.e. social workers) and they 'couldn't confirm' that I was. So, a legally qualified employee of Nottingham City Council was prepared to stand up in court and state that NCC's definition of disability was somebody who had a social worker.

Never mind the fact that data protection rules would have prevented the social workers from telling her anything about me without my authority, or that after their treatment of me there is no way I'm letting any of their employees near me, she actually thought that all disabled people would have a social worker and if you didn't have one then you cannot possibly be disabled.

To me this is a level of ignorance of at least the same level as Street-Porter's. I agree that JSP managed to find a wider variety of aspects in which to express her stupidity but then she does claim to be a journalist. But in terms of idiocy levels NCC are right up there.

Believe me, depression can be extremely debilitating but those that suffer from it often don't get taken seriously due to ignorance or because we don't 'look' disabled. And we most certainly don't ALL have social workers for a variety of reasons.

On that last point, I'm off to work on my inane dribbling in the mirror and to try a pair of pants on my head for size. Gotta look the part if that's what it takes...

There's Just Nothing We Can Do...

A bit older this one.

Last July NCC got all bullish about so-called 'Griminals' who make the place look untidy and jeopardise winning 'Britain in Bloom'.

Then, a couple of weeks later this story about a notorious 'grot-spot' found it's way into the 'Evening Post', complete with stern looking Tory PPC for Nottingham South (click on story for bigger version).


It concerns a property on Greencroft in Clifton that has apparently been empty for some time and has attracted the usual community bugbears, grafitti and 'anti-social behaviour'.

The Tories, in an early outing for their rather successful campaigning method of highlighting NCC failings in order to get themselves in the media and put Labour in a bad light, took up the issue with NCC. (I know I've been somewhat cynical about this and I'm not convinced of their new 'community champions' persona for a second but I have to acknowledge their approach's success as a campaigning tool. They got lots of media mileage from the Radford Unity Complex issue which will have done Rowena Holland absolutely no harm on May 6th.)

The 'Post' reports that the answer they got back was that NCC couldn't serve an enforcement notice to get the place cleaned up because they owned the property and they couldn't serve a notice on themselves. I mean, there is a whacking great hole in their logic there for all to see but we'll let it go for now.

Because later in the article, Cllr Alan Clarke said that the property was on a long lease to a Housing Association. So really, as far as enforcement issues are concerned, this means that NCC isn't the owner at all, the (unnamed) housing association is. So why can't a notice be served on them?

Next I'd like to introduce you to a little known but extraordinarily draconian piece of legislation known as S.215 of the Town and Country Planning Act. Essentially, this allows a local council to make a subjective decision that the condition of a piece of land or property is affecting the 'amenity' (whatever that is, it's not defined) of an area. It can then serve a notice requiring the owner or occupier to clean it up and if you don't comply you can be fined and you'll have a criminal record. The legislation is completely open-ended and, as far as I can see, there is nothing to prevent it being used by a council who decided one day that all front doors on a street should be pink. An increasing number of councils are finding it especially useful for those things that they don't like but which don't require planning permission such as tall hedges because of its handy catch-all nature.

So, you thought an Englishman's home was his castle eh? Not if your local council decides they don't like the colour of your turrets it's not.

And now I have a confession. I have been on the receiving end of this nasty little piece of legislation and found myself in the Magistrates' Court yesterday. Yes, I'm afraid I have an untidy garden. It's got brambles, tall hedges and raggedy bushes. I'm not proud of this fact but, on the other hand, I don't really think it makes me a bad person either.

You see one of the effects of depression, of which I suffer following NCC's appalling treatment of me when I worked for them, and which is defined as a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act, is that you often find that you can't really cope with getting out of bed, never mind doing the gardening. Frankly, if you find the outside of my house offensive you should see the inside.

And the point here is that the sole effect of my garden on the wider community is cosmetic, it doesn't actually hurt anyone. It does however attract increasingly large amounts of wildlife, last summer I saw more butterflies and bumble bees than ever before, both of which are in serious decline but that doesn't seem to be classed as a positive effect on the 'amenity' by NCC. Because, let's remember, they get to make up all the rules.

So, NCC caused my illness and disability and then attempts to prosecute me for not being able to fully cope with all aspects of my life as a result of that disability. As you might guess, I feel a little on the bitter side about that.

So, why do you think that NCC would prosecute a disabled person under S.215 but not a housing association, even though the above property in Clifton would be a much more appropriate case seeing as it is unoccupied and boarded up, creating much more of an eyesore and attracting the dreaded ASB? You don't think it could be because they don't expect the disabled person to be up to fighting back, allowing them to secure an easy prosecution, get it in the media and frighten everybody else into being fully compliant little Stepford Wives? Whereas of course, a housing association is likely to have those inconvenient legal teams staffed with expensive lawyers who probably WILL find all sorts of loopholes and fight back quite determinedly. And of course, being a local authority, you never know when you might need a housing association on your side when government inspectors start looking at how well you deal with the provision of social housing.

No, much easier to bullshit the press and politicians with some nonsense excuse and look the other way. More fool the Tories and the Post for falling for that one.

So I don't know how my case is going to go. I'm probably not helping myself blogging about it but this is partly blogging as therapy and I think the issues are important. The case yesterday was adjourned on NCC's application on the basis that they had 'just' found out that I 'may' be disabled. Ignoring the fact that I am pretty sure that I'm fairly well known amongst NCC's Legal Services team, there's also the fact that I told the Environmental Health guy last year when I caught him sneaking about my property taking pictures.

As I've said in previous posts, there does appear to be a bit of double standards among enforcement decisions by NCC.

By the way, according to the Committees Terms of Reference as part of NCC's Constitution (see p38 of this document and also this page from the NCC website), all enforcement decisions have to be approved by the Development Control Committee. I've checked all their agendas back to September 2008 and they haven't been told about mine.