Government out of touch on bail hostels

“Suburban bail hostels branded a success” according to a Minister on the BBC website. Care to visit Aldridge Mr Hanson?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7850494.stm

Want to help in a by-election?

A by-election in the neighbouring ward of Shelfield Rushall hsa been called for February 26th. Conservatives have selected Ron Carpenter as their candidate.

Do you want to get involved or help out? It may be canvassing – talking to people on the doorstep, delivering leaflets or simply counting out leaflets. It all adds up and it all helps get a hard working Conservative elected.

Now is the time to get involved so please email me: michael@mikeflower.com ring me or contact Garry Perry.

Advice on bogus callers

“There have been reports of ‘bogus callers’ operating across Walsall on the last few weeks.

There are various do’s and don’t’s, particularly important for elderly residents

- Don’t let anyone in unless you are expecting them, utility companies rarely make house calls without appointment

- talk to people through the door rather than opening it when they knock

- ask who they are before opening the door, then keep the door on the chain (if affixed) until you have seen their I’d

- Always make sure back doors are locked before answering the front door – thieves have been known to work in pairs, one entering through the back as the other knocks the front door

Further advice can be sought from Age Conern, Social Services or the Police Reassurance Officers.

Please pass this advice on to any local groups of interest such as Neighbourhood Watch and spread the message.

One successful distraction burglary is too many and we need to make it a ‘no go’ area for them in Walsall.”

Advice from Cllr Garry Perry – Portfolio Holder for Community Safety, Walsall Council

Lets try something new..

You may remember when I stood in the by-election back in Novemeber 2006 I used a mobile phone to blog pictures from the campaign. Now technology has moved on and its possible to post to proper blogs via a mobile phone as well as the computer. So i’m going to give it a whirl.

What this means is that I can update this blog from both my computer and my mobile phone – so if out in the ward I can take photos and whack them straight on here.

I’ve also joined Twitter. Now i’m not sure how useful Twitter is going to be in my role as a councillor but its worth giving a whirl. If you are interested my Twitter address is: www.twitter.com/cllrmikeflower

This also means i’ll be able to put stuff on Facebook and Linked In.

Whether any of this will make it easier to engage with the electorate -we’ll wait and see!

Ministry of Justice apologises for misleading comments

Well I have finally received two replies from the Ministry of Justice to my Freedom of Information requests. I post them here:

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Thank you for your message of 21 November about Stonnall Road Approved Premises( AP). I apologise for the delay in replying.

My message to Councillor Flower was not meant to imply that Walsall Borough Council had a duty to enable APs to be developed, and I apologise if it gave thati mpression. What I was indicating was that a local authority’s agreement is needed before a site can be developed, because it has to decide whether to grant planning permission. In those circumstances it makes sense for the Probation Service to work with the local authority on identifying as ite, in order to avoid disagreement at a later stage, and that is what WMPA has been trying to do in Walsall. We do of course recognise that, even when this has been done, responsibility fora cquiring the site falls to the Probation Service, and planning permissionc annot be taken for granted. Walsall Borough Council’s help so far has been valuable and I am sure it will continue to be. Mr Flower has written to me and I shall be correcting any mistaken impression in my reply to him as well.
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Dear Mr Flower

You e-mailed me on 22 November with further questions about Stonnall Road Approved Premises (AP). I acknowledged your message on 28 November as a request under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act and, folding my holding reply of 19 December, I am now replying substantively on both the general points you make and the specific requests for information.

You are unhappy that high-risk offenders have been admitted to Stonnall Road. You believe that this contradicts the statement in my message of 13 November that “anyone whose level of risk is assessed as not being manageable in the community will not normally be accepted”. I should make clear that the two are actually consistent. Whether an offender presents a high risk of harm is a different matter from whether the risks that he or she presents can be managed in the community. APs are a prime resource for the management of high-risk offenders and so will take them, provided the risks that they present can be managed. It is important to note that the risks that offenders present cannot be eliminated; they can only be reduced and managed, and decisions on admissions to APs are taken with those aims in mind.

You ask for details of the numbers of high-risk offenders, bailees and licensees that have been accommodated at Stonnall Road. I have considered the public interest as I mentioned in my 19 December reply, and I am afraid it will not be possible to provide that information. Previous experience has shown that to release data of this sort can lead to publicd isorder and thereby place operational effectiveness at considerable risk, and can also jeopardise the safety of staff, residents and neighbours. In addition, effective supervision of residents and public protection could be reduced if residents felt they could be identified as high-risk offenders and went underground. In my view, these concerns mean that is not in the public interest to release this information. I am therefore withholding this information on the grounds that its disclosure would be likely to endanger the physical health or safety of staff, residents and neighbours (section 38 of the FoI Act) and to prejudice the maintenance of security and good order in institutions where persons are lawfully detained (section 31(1)(f) of the Act).

You then ask about the process for approving or unapproving APs. My previous reply said that there is no process set out in the legislation. The legislation allows theS ecretary of State to approve APs and to withdraw approval. While it does not specify a process for doing so, I am sure you would agree that such decisions should be taken systematically and on the basis of evidence and consideration of all the relevant factors. In the absence of a statutory requirement, the process I outlined in my last message is what has been developed, and I cannot really tell you any more about it.

You ask for copies of the orders signed by the Minister designating Stonnall Road as an Approved Premises, and copies of briefing papers submitted to Ministers when the Secretary ofS tate approved Stonnall Road.

Stonnall Road was first approved as a bail hostel in 1989 and re-approved under theP robation Service Act 1993. West Midlands Probation has searched its records and has been able to find a letter communicating the Secretary of State’s decision in 1993 to the West Midland Probation Committee (the predecessor of the current Probation Board). This is the only material that West Midlands has been able to find, and I am afraid it will not be possible to provide further papers about that or any papers about the original decision in 1989. There is a very strong possibility that they will have been disposed of after so much time, and it would take some time to find out whether that was so, with further time then being needed to locate the papers and retrieve them. Section 12 of the Act enables public authorities to refuse requests for informationw here the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information. I estimate that, because of the length of time since the original approval was given and the significant organisational changes in the interim period, to comply with your request would take at least that long.

The relevant legislation was replaced first by the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2000 and then by the Offender Management Act 2007. Both times, existing premises were automatically approved when the legislation came into effect (and the term“ approved premises” introduced in the 2000 Act). This was by virtue of section 9(2), which provides:

References in any enactment to an approved bail hostel or approved probation hostel are to be read as references to premises approved under this section.

As imilar provision was included in section 13 of the 2007 Act. As a result, there are no paperss pecifically covering Stonnall Road’s continued approval in 2001 and 2007.

You then ask about the work that West Midlands Probation Area (WMPA) has done on finding a different site for an AP. Contrary to what you say, WMPA has in fact been seeking a site since1 997. I can provide copies of correspondence from West Midlands Probation that I hope will demonstrate this. You are of course correct in saying that the council has no statutory duty to provide a site, and I did not mean to imply that in my previous message. What I was indicating was that a local authority’s agreement is needed before a site can be developed, because it has to decide whether to grantp lanning permission. In those circumstances it makes sense for the Probation Service to work with the local authority on identifying a site, in order to avoid disagreement at a laters tage, and that is what WMPA has been trying to do in Walsall.

You then refer to the High Court judgement over the planning appeal and ask why theG overnment has not appealed further if it disagrees. I must again make two things clear. First, it was WMPA who were involved in the appeal, not the Ministry of Justice. Second, the case did not result in a decision that Stonnall Road should be shut; the sole outcome was that planning permission for an expansion wasr efused. There is thus no question of the court’s decision not being complied with. WMPA will have considered the result and will have decided whether or not to proceed further on the basis of cost and prospects of success; simply disagreeing with the court’s judgement would not, of itself, have been enough to form the basis of a further appeal.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your freedom of information requests, you have the right to ask for an internal review. You can submit an internal review request within two months of the date you receive this reply; you should address it to: Access Rights Unit, Ministry of Justice, 102 Petty France, London SW1H 9AJ.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. You can contact the Commissioner at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

I hope this fully explains the position. I am afraid I have only hard copies of the correspondence mentioneda bove, so if you would like to see them, could you please let me know yourp ostal address? If you have any further questions about the overall policy or about your FoI requests, do please feel free to contact me.
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So – if you’ve had the patience to read all that then please let me know what you think. I think it’s safe to say they are still in no hurry to close it!

I think it is safe to say that we have identified a number of loopholes in legislation:

- that C2 planning use for residential and care homes means that bail hostels and approved premises can pop up without need for planning permission – as happened here.

- that these bail hostels can be converted to approved premises automatically without consulting the community or taking current conditions into play.

A quick round up so far…

Happy New Year to my constituents, friends and family! There has already been a lot on since the beginning of the year:

- Development Control Committee
- Full Council (this evening)
- Corporate Scrutiny of the budget (late Dec)
- Walsall Wood Steering Group

I’ve also got news on the 991 bus, Stonnall Road Bail Hostel and on the Walsall Wood regeneration project!

I will post more about these shortly so forgive the sudden batch of updates…