An interesting start to the morning! I saw an item on the agenda for a meeting of the Finance and Economic Overview and Scrutiny committee taking place today 20th February 2024 at Grantham titled ICT Cyber Security Update.
This appeared in a late Agenda Supplement pack placed on the Council webite for the meeting.
The recommendation from Alison Hall-Wright, Deputy Director (Finance & ICT) and Deputy Section 151 Officer is:
.. committee "notes the completion of the Cyber Treatment Plan attached at Appendix A."
So I turned to Appendix A to find that it is an Exempt appendix which has been withheld.
So why has it been withheld? I searched through the rest of the papers. And then looked again on the website. Below the links to download the Agenda and Report Packs for the meeting is a section on the website
Agenda item 12 has a link to view the reasons why document 12/2 is restricted. So what are those reasons?
Whilst this tells me which paragraph in Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 it is proposed to rely upon when withholding this document, it does not give me any indication of why this particular document would qualify for consideration as an Exempt item under this paragraph.
However even this limited information is missing from the copies of the public papers made available for the public to consult if they attend the meeting. Here is the pile of papers for the public to take a copy when (if) they arrive to observe the meeting:
There are no copies of the Supplementary Papers. However I was given a copy when I arrived which had a section torn out of the pack. When I pointed out this omission I was told that my copy was a private copy and was not a copy of the Supplemental Pack intended for the public. I am not convinced by this.
I have had concerns recently about the way that errors are dealt with at this Council. Note the issue I had with Public Spaces Protection Orders and the attempt to correct a procedural error by making another, even worse, procedural mistake (to put it at its most generous) which has resulted in all of the existing Public Space Protection Orders being revoked and having to go back through the consultation and remaking process.
It looks to me as though there has been a late decision that the Appendix describing the work down as part of the Cyber Treatment Plan might be information that the Council wishes to keep confidential. But instead of withdrawing the item and scheduling it for a future meeting with appropriate notice of the intention to take an item in private session, the decision appear to have been to take the item in a public session but somehow (and I do not understand quite how this will work), keeping the contents of the paper that committee are asked to debate and note out of public view,
Welcoming the public to our meetings
The Council state that the public is welcome to attend and observe our meetings. But my recent experience of attending Council committee meetings suggests that the "welcome" could be improved.
Council meetings are advertised as held in the Council chamber in SK House on St Peter's Green Grantham. But there is no notice on the building which tells the public that this is SK House. The only real clue is the noticeboard outside headed Council meetings this coming week.
When you arrive you are met by a set of glass double doors which are locked. There are no notices on the doors which tell you how to gain access, and no telephone number given. There is a smal white door bell button on the right hand door. Pressing this results in a member of staff coming out with a set of keys, unlocking the door and letting you in, locking the door behind you.
In the hallway is a table with a clipboard, paper and pen. You are asked to sign in - alledgedly in case of a fire alarm - then staff will know who is in the building. Mine was the only name on this list for today.
I did not see any similar sign in list for staff or for Councillors. I will ask one of the Concillors if they have to sign in and out of the building.
On arrival around 9:50 a.m. for a 10:30 a.m. meeting I was met at the door and handed a set of papers (including the "private" set of the Supplemental Agenda papers) and asked not to return until 10:15 a.m. to be allowed in to the meeting. I was directed to the nearby Digby Cafe in the Guildhall to wait.
Whilst I was sat in Digby Cafe reading the meeting papers, a member of staff of the Cafe asked me if I was going to buy anything from the cafe, and if not, could I wait elsewhere - perhaps in the area where the Council's main customer services reception was located, adjacent to the cafe. So I moved to that reception area and explained that I was waiting to attend a committee meeting and had been asked not to wait in the Digby Cafe.
Staff seemed surprised but eventually showed me in a smallish room with three or four desks with computers which appear to be for the use of the public when "communicating" with the Council, and I was welcome to wait there ro read the papers until I was allowed back in to Sk House.
Whilst waiting an elderly gentleman came in to try and discuss some problem with having received two Council Tax bills. He was hard of hearing so had difficulty with using telephones. He had spoken to Revenue and Benefits department who had directed him to go online to sort this out. However when he tried to do this the system told him that he did not exist. He wanted to speak face to face with a member of staff to try and sort out why he had two Council tax bills for two different properties before bailiffs came round to him.
The advice he received was that he needed to make an appointment to meet with someone. How, he asked, can I do that?
Now - the standard answer would normally be - you need to phone up to arrange an appointment - but he had already indicated that he had hearing difficulties and could not use the phone easily.
As I left the person on reception was helping him to make an apointment. I handed the gentleman a copy of a business card that I sometimes have with me and said to him, "if you are still having difficulty, then get someone to give me a quick call on the number on the card and I can arrange to come over and help you." And I went back to Sk House, pressed the bell, signed in and walked up to the Council Chamber to take a seat at the rear of the Chamber.
You can watch my address to the Council committee on the Council Livestream site.
The committee eventually debated agenda item 12 and tried to discuss the "pink pages" without actually referring to the Exempt appendix and eventually publically "noted" the report.
I am not convinced by the explainations of the Officers regarding the adequacy of the disclosure of the reasons that the item had to be Exempt. On the website, but not in the printed papers, paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A is referenced, but there is no information to inform the public about what it is about the contents of the Exempt appendix that means that it should not be disclosed, i.e. why does it fall under that paragraph in Schedule 12A.
So to recap:
a) the paragraph of Schedule 12A that the Council is relying upon is on the website below the section where the meeting pack download links are placed
b) the printed packs for the public placed out at the meeting did NOT include the Supplementary Pack with item 12 in it (because they had the "pink" exempt pages in them and no copies without these were prepared for the public)
c) the public pages which were the report for item 12 (but not the Appendix which was withheld) do NOT state which paragraph of Schedule 12A is being used to withhold the Appendix and there are no statements of reasons at all anywhere in the public domain which can be read by the public to understand why the Appendix might be considered for withholding from the public.
Since I remain very unhappy with the way that this has been dealt with I have decided to try another route to see what this withheld document contains or at the very least to get an explanation in writing of what in it needs to be kept secret. This FOI request will be interesting.
SKDC has now released a redacted copy of the withheld Cyber Treatment Plan
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cyber_treatment_plan/response/2571477/attach/2/attachment.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1