Angie Astley / Head of Customer Services,
Leisure & Libraries
Mr Whitehouse
/ Freedom of Information
Civic Offices
Coach Central
Telford
TF3 4HD
Contact: / Freedom of Information / Telephone: / (01952) 382006 / Fax: / (01952) 383991
Your Ref: / Our Ref: / TWC-09666 / Date: / 23 March 2011

Dear Mr Whitehouse,

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000

Part Information Provided

Further to your application for information, we can confirm that your application has now been assessed under FOIA and we are pleased to be able to provide you with some of the information you requested.

  1. Please provide details of the attendance at council and committee meetings, since the elections on 3 May 2007 until 10 March 2011, of the following two town council members:
  • Tracy Jean Hope
  • Clive Paul Richard Mollet

For both councillors this detail should cover all full council meetings and any other committees on which they may have sat during the period stated.

Councillor Hope - Membership of Committees

2007/8Licensing Committee, Scrutiny Commission 2 (Environment & Regeneration), Full Council

2008/9Licensing Committee and Full Council

2009/10Licensing Committee and Full Council

2010/11Licensing Committee. Housing, Regeneration and Prosperity Scrutiny Commission and Full Council

Councillor Mollett

2007/8 Councillor Mollett was not elected until March 2008, therefore no information will be recorded for him for this period.

2008/9Standards Committee, Substitute Member on Plans Board and Appeals Committee, Full Council

2009/10Standards Committee, Substitute Member on Plans Board and Appeals Committee, Full Council

2010/11Licensing Committee, Appeals, Efficient & Community Focussed Council Scrutiny Commission, Children and Young People Scrutiny, substitute Member for Plans Board and Full Council

For information, these councillors are Telford & Wrekin Borough councillors and not Town councillors. We do not retain attendance statistics for individual meetings/members.

  1. The information for each of the two mentioned councillors should clearly indicate the name and date of each and every relevant meeting, and the member's attendance/non-attendance at that meeting, shown as one of the following:
  • present
  • apologies (plus reason, if given)
  • absent

Those present and apologies received are shown in the minutes of the relevant meetings which can be obtained at:

Reasons for apologies are not required or recorded, therefore we are unable to provide this information.

  1. The information for each of the two mentioned councillors should also clearly indicate their contribution to discussions/debates including any votes.

Minutes are not verbatim records of meetings, they are an overall account of what was agreed at the meeting. Voting by Members is only shown in the minutes when a recorded vote is taken.

However, we are sorry to inform you that we do not hold the following information you have requested. This letter therefore forms a Refusal Notice under s17 and the following exemption has been applied:-

  1. If there has been a failure to attend any meeting throughout a period of six consecutive months, by either of these two members, during the dates, as stated above, then please give the name and date(s) of the council meeting(s) which approved a reason for this absence (as provided by the Local Government Act 1972 s.85(1) ),and state the reason(s) given.

Exemption:- Procedural – Information Not Held

The reason for this is we do not hold this information and are therefore unable to release it.

If you are dissatisfied with the information you have received, you have the right to Appeal. Please set out in writing your grounds for your Appeal which must be received on or before, 23 June 2011, three (3) months from the date of this letter. Please write to: Information Governance Manager, Freedom of Information – Appeal and send it to the address above or email: , remembering to quote the above reference number.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled and wish to make a complaint about the service you have received, please write to: Customer Quality Manager, Freedom of Information – Complaint, and send it to the address above or email: , remembering to quote the above reference number.

In the meantime, if you have any other queries then please do not hesitate to contact us, details above.

Yours sincerely,

On behalf of Freedom of Information

Gemma Barnard

Customer Quality Team