Data protection and freedom of information

Mayor's Neighbourhood Fund - How funds were used and report on whistleblowing allegations

Copy of letter sent on 29th March in response to Freedom of Information request 13282462 about how the Mayor's Neighbourhood funds were used and report on whistleblowing allegations.

Dear Requestor,

Thank you for your recent request. Your request was actioned under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in which you requested the following information.

Question

Firstly, thank you for your prompt response to my last request of 23rd August 2022. I would be grateful if you could now supply the following information, also relating to the Mayoral Neighbourhood Fund.

Please provide both the request forms and completed monitoring forms for any payments made to the following organisations in the financial years 2015/16 to 2021/22 (inclusive):

  • Beautiful Ideas Company (Company number 09138025)
  • Paper Cup project (Charity number 1181449)
  • Shrewsbury House (Charity number 1058694 / Company number 03245123)
  • Marybone Youth & Community Centre (Charity number: 1066366)

If a monitoring report has not been submitted, could you please let me know.

Finally, could you please supply me with a copy of the Internal Audit of the Mayoral Neighbourhood Fund carried out in 2019. I believe this has already been released in response to an FoI but has not been placed in the public domain.

Response

Internal review

The basis under which this review is undertaken is that the council has not provided a timely response.

We agree with your assessment and therefore uphold your request for review insofar as a response has been delayed and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Liverpool City Council (the council) would advise that we have completed a review of retained data and records held by the Streetscene Team in the Neighbourhood Services directorate, which administers the Mayoral Neighbourhood Fund (MNF) and therefore retains all records of relevance including correspondence to which your request relates.

In responding to your request, comprehensive searches were undertaken in respect of current and retained mailbox and data files retained on servers operated by the council for the purposes of receipt, processing, and transactions of email data exchanges. In addition, these searches extended to included data held in structured format on servers and team drives used for the purposes of the operation and administration of council business.

The council would note that we are not under obligation to retain and process data indefinitely and as such with the departure of individuals and/or data or correspondence not being required to be retained or processed for operational purposes, that any response provided is based solely on data held at the point of request and to that retained for purposes of operational requirements only.

The search systems used for this process are independent of individual officers and instead processed using Office 365 (O365) advanced discovery. A series of search terms were used relating to the administration of the Mayoral Neighbourhood Fund and with reference to the following search terms:

‘Paper Cup’, ‘Paper Cup Project’, ‘PC Project’, ‘Shrewsbury’, ‘Shrewsbury House’, ‘Marybone’, ‘Marybone Youth & Community Centre’, ‘BICO’, ‘Beautiful Ideas Company’, ‘Beautiful Ideas (North) limited’ in combination with the MNF, Mayoral Neighbourhood Fund or similar.

The above searches were defined by and undertaken in accordance with the terms of your request. Search returns were as follows:

  1. Beautiful Ideas Company (Company number 09138025) – no data returned as a result of the above searches.
  2. Paper Cup Project (Charity number 1181449) – data returned. Copies of correspondence and documentation attached, redactions applied under s.40(2) FOIA 2000.
  3. Shrewsbury House (Charity number 1058694/Company number 03245123) – data returned. Copies of correspondence and documentation attached, redactions applied under s.40(2) FOIA 2000.
  4. Marybone Youth & Community Centre (Charity number: 1066366) – data returned. Copies of correspondence and documentation attached, redactions applied under s.40(2) FOIA 2000.
  5. A copy of the Internal Audit report in respect of a review of MNF undertaken 2019 is attached, redactions applied under s.40(2) FOIA 2000.

Note that as indicated above, limited redactions have been applied in relation to third party individuals or to named officers are below a level of seniority to which it would be reasonable to expect disclosure. These redactions have been made in accordance with the application of s.40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The attached documents may not be accessible to users of assistive technology - if you are unable to access or read these files, please email Informationrequests@liverpool.gov.uk.

Additional information

Information relating to a number of community projects funded by MNF have been disclosed in response to this request. In addition, an internal audit report is released. This report was issued following receipt of a number of whistleblowing allegations of financial irregularity and made a series of recommendations. The Audit Committee received assurances on the internal control processes and progress made since this audit at their meeting in April 2022 - Read the report on the councillors and committees website.

More recently, a review of community grants and a proposed rapid review of Mayoral Neighbourhood Fund has been considered at Cabinet in March 2023.

This concludes our response

The City Council will consider appeals, referrals or complaints in respect of your Freedom of Information Act 2000 and you must submit these in writing to Informationrequests@liverpool.gov.uk within 28 days of receiving your response.

The matter will be dealt with by an officer who was not previously involved with the response and we will look to provide a response within 40 days.

If you remain dissatisfied you may also apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision about whether the request for information has been dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The Information Commissioner’s website is ico.org.uk and the postal address and telephone numbers are: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK95AF. Fax number 01625 524 510, DX 20819, Telephone 01625 545745. Email mail@ico.gsi.gov.uk - they advise that their email is not secure.

I trust this information satisfies your enquiry.

Yours sincerely,

Information Team