Cheshire East Council has been instructed to make the independent report into the £1m Lyme Green fiasco available to the public, albeit an edited version.
Despite numerous requests, the Council has refused to release the report of the Designated Independent Person (DIP) into the ill-fated project to build a waste transfer facility on the Lyme Green site in Macclesfield for a number of reasons.
These included the fact the report contained personal data and would lead to a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998, it would be in breach of legal agreements they had with a number of individuals and it was never intended for wider public release.
However, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), following an appeal by the Macclesfield Express, has ordered Cheshire East Council to release a redacted copy of the report, which cost taxpayers £225,000, by January 14th 2014.
Whilst the Commissioner accepted that the report contained a lot of personal information and disclosure could be detrimental to those criticised in it this was weighed against the very strong public interest in disclosing the information.
The ICO stated: "Increased transparency of these events would help the public understand what went on and perhaps reassure them that the Council is now in a position to learn from the lessons of Lyme Green. It is certainly arguable that greater transparency offers the best way for the Council to put the events of Lyme Green behind it and rebuild the trust of the people it serves.
"The arguments that the disclosure would be unfair, ie the expectations of, and detriment to, the individuals concerned is very finely balanced against the legitimate interests in disclosure. However because the information relates to the performance of senior officers and because of the damage the Lyme Green project has done to the reputation of the Council, the Commissioner finds that disclosing the information in these exceptional circumstances would be fair."
A Cheshire East Council spokesman said: "We have received a decision notice from the Information Commissioner's Office. We are pleased the Commissioner has accepted that a number of redactions need to be made to the report for a variety of reasons.
"At this early stage, we are minded to accept the findings of the Commissioner and the Leader of the Council has given a strong commitment to openness and transparency on this issue.
"Due to the fact the full report is 100-pages long, the Council previously published a version of the report to aide public understanding.
"However it is likely a full version of the report will be made available once the recommended redactions have been agreed and a full and clear understanding of all the suggestions made."
Referring to the Internal Audit report into the Lyme Green scandal which was previously published by Cheshire East Council, the Commissioner said it does not provide as full a picture as the DIP's report and deals mainly with the procedures whereas the DIP report allocates blame for those failings.
Click here to read the full Decision Notice of the Information Commissioner's Office.
Updated: 5.35pm Friday 20th December. The redacted DIP report has now been published by Cheshire East Council and can be viewed here on the CEC website.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
We (The Ratepayers) paid for this report and We (The Ratepayers again) have had to pay for the Lyme Green fiasco which has cost us (Yes, The Ratepayers once again) one million pounds!
The report has also cost us nearly a quarter of a million pounds!
Well Done to the Macclesfield Express in appealing for us to see this report !
Cheshire East Council have been hiding behind this barrier of "Data Confidentiality" for so long now that it has become one huge joke ............ except that it's no joke when it's our money they've wasted and I guess very few Council Taxpayers will be laughing at this monumental mess-up.
I am led to believe that the total cost of this fiasco is nudging £2m.
Roll on election time; we will not forget.
It is absurd to suggest that the cost is nudging £2m; it is significantly reduced from the £1m because the costs (apart from legal costs) will be largely mitigated by future use.
As far as I can see the "redactions" or as we say in UK English "Censorship" is not the Information Commissioner's but the CEC's.
Read here: http://bit.ly/199b837
Page after page either totally or partially blanked out, all the allegations blanked out, 27 out or 28 witness names... blanked out.
Absurd? I agree. Roll on the elections.
The link you provided took me through to the Cheshire East press release, which says the redactions were “directed by the Information Commissioner”. If you think they were not directed by the ICO, then that would be a whole new story.
When you say the £2m has been widely quoted in national and local press, which examples are you using?
The capital spend was £800k, and the Legal Fees were £225k (both widely quoted) and also widely quoted is the fact that if the site were to be used as a depot for a local company, much of that £800k would be recovered. The total spend was just over £1m, and there will be recoveries.
I agree that the Lyme Green matter is not an example of good governance,it was a failure of the Executive to govern. When I read the report, I hope I read the terms of reference under which it was commissioned. It was commissioned by the then Chief Executive, and as you know, whoever sets the terms of reference sets the final report.
It's an absolutely total shambles ! ...............
"An absolutely shocking example would be a better expression" !
Whatever the report reads, it's a total whitewash with 90% of the words covered up in the 2nd Page. It doesn't matter who has redacted it, the report is a Non-Report !
It's an insult to our intelligence !
A few clicks on the internet took me to these figures from CEC's annual accounts:
£800,000 Paid to contractor for work done at Lyme Green
£225,000 Cost of independent report
£93,250 Termination payment to Chief Executive
£45,750 Termination payment to Director of Places and waste services
£45,160 Termination payment to Director of Finance
£28,861 Termination payment to Borough Solicitor
£350,000 Cost of temporary waste transfer station for 1st year to September 2012
£250,000 Cost of temporary waste transfer station for 2nd year to September 2013
£1,838,021 Total cost to date
The Crewe Chronicle says that the ongoing costs, due to having to employ a private contractor to handle the waste are £40,000 per month for the foreseeable future.
With regard to the arrangement with Arighi Bianchi, which some Councillors say was made without their knowledge, perhaps you can shed some light? Has the Lyme Green site been sold or, leased and for how much?