The Department of Stealth and Total Obscurity

[Baron von Lotsov]

Ah, the reminder email seems to have clicked the plod's brain into gear and the letter has now passed the nose of the Director of Investigations. The Director of Investigations obviously knows the law - good sign!



"Further to your email addressed to Karen Sykes, I acknowledge your request for information received on 17 October 2019.



We aim to respond to all requests within 20 working days, and therefore you can expect my response to be issued on or before 14 November 2019.



If you have made your request electronically, you can expect our response to be sent electronically..."



They are treating it as an FOI. FOIs can stumble if they cost too much to process, but think it through logically, they must have a set of internal rules in a document so staff can quickly and accurately assess each application. Similar government bodies have these and publish them. They collate all law on the matter, from case law, international law, statutory law and anything else which is relevant to their determination. If we use the same guidance we should be able to pass the hurdle. Also of note is that FOI requests are published if successful, so it will help others.



Their logo is: Listen - Understand - Communicate - Learn

[Baron von Lotsov]

If the rules WERE on the site, you would read them and they would not be able to penalise you for not following them.



That may sound a strange stance to anyone who has not crossed swords with these people.



I am sure those who have will understand what I'm getting at.

Absolutely my point. I mentioned in the letter that I got the above reply to that I wanted the rules to make sure my compliant did not fail due to some technical error in procedure. I do not think they like people being wise to their ways.

[johnofgwent]

If the rules WERE on the site, you would read them and they would not be able to penalise you for not following them.



That may sound a strange stance to anyone who has not crossed swords with these people.



I am sure those who have will understand what I'm getting at.

[Baron von Lotsov]

Was what a friend of mine long ago used to call the Department of Health and Social Security. Now we are in 2019, long long after the name was coined and I look to see how distant our government is, and it is out of sight.



I'll paraphrase what I sent to one of our statutory regulators. It was basically "Dear Sir, what are the rules? They are not on your website"

17 October 2019



Our ref: 19 012 067

(Please quote our reference when contacting us)



Dear Mr von Lotsov,

Thank you for your recent contact, however we do not accept complaints via email directly to members of staff.



Should you wish to present a complaint to us then please do using our online form at http://www.lgo.org.uk">www.lgo.org.uk.



Alternatively, you can post the complaint to us at Local Government Ombudsman, PO BOX 4771, Coventry, CV4 0EH or call one of our complaint's advisers on 0300 061 0614, Mon-Fri 08:30-5pm.



Yours sincerely



Andrew Grice

Intake Team Leader

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND SOCIAL CARE OMBUDSMAN



NOTICE - This message contains information intended only for the use of the addressee named above.  If you have received this message in error please advise us at once and do not make any use of the information. Please note that our incoming mail size limit is 20Mb per email.

It's another shite for brains, trying to stop me communicating with people I pay the wages of in my taxes.



The rules should have been available on the site. The site makes it impossible to request a copy of the rules because it does not provide a method of contacting them electronically in writing, and I will not use the phone because I have not got the time, nor the money to listen to inane propaganda messages telling me that they know my call is important. All government departments are becoming like this. All corporate websites are as well, e.g. Royal Mail. They all want you to phone them, not write to them. I had to write to the head office at Royal Mail to communicate a simple thing about a parcel.



My phone rips me 34p just for as connection, so it's easier just to print out the request on notepad, and sling it in the post. I have a letterbox at the end of my garden. Wikipedia helpfully carries all the head office addresses.