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Request sent to Local Government dept for info regarding press release based on Opera report

2011, June 25 - 12:01 — PatParslow

Dear Sir,

Please can you tell me how much money was spent by your department on the Opera report mentioned in your press release http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1925280

Furthermore, can you please let me know how much of this cost the department has identified as having been wasted by reviewing the claims the Opera report makes in light of Ben Goldacre's expose of it's inadequacies (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/24/bad-science-local-go...)?

Can you also furnish me with details of the qualifications of those civil servants and politicians in your department who were involved in the commissioning and acceptance of this report, and the writing of the press release? I am specifically interested in knowing their level of competence in areas such as mathematics and critical reasoning.

I would also be obliged if you would furnish me with details of the procedures you use for providing remedial training to your staff and politicians to avoid making clear arithmetic errors and similarly to avoid commissioning companies which are unable to provide simple accurate analyses in their reports?

Many thanks

Pat Parslow
(contact details supplied)

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Comments

2011, August 2 - 19:33 — PatParslow

Response...

Dear Mr Barslow

I can confirm that contrary to speculation in the press this Department did not commission or pay for the Opera Solutions publication on local government procurement. It is a document independently published by a private sector consultancy.

 The Department was not seeking to promote another organisation but recognising that the case studies in the Opera Solution publication support the evidence from work done previously by the Local Government Group, of examples of improved procurement practices, which claim to have “delivered savings, typically up to 20 per cent". Some of these equate to considerable financial savings for local authorities. The Department supports the work of the Local Government Group and individual local authorities in highlighting the gains to be made from successful innovative procurement practice. The report is available here: http://www.niepbuiltenvironment.org.uk/documents/PCSAWorkstream-QuickWinsStrategyOct2010.pdf

 

 

 

 

2011, August 2 - 19:34 — PatParslow

My response

 Dear Miss XXXX,

 

 
  Many thanks for the reply - the previous copy appears to have gone astray, quite possibly due to an occasionally over eager spam filter at this end.
 
  There is no requirement for me to specifically mention FoI - I am somewhat surprised that a Government department is under the illusion that that is the case.
 
  I note that you did not pay for the report (which is good news).  However,although this makes some of the other questions redundant, others remain un-answered.  To whit:
 
  Can you also furnish me with details of the qualifications of those civil servants and politicians in your department who were involved in  writing of the press release?  I am specifically interested in knowing their level of competence in areas such as mathematics and critical reasoning.
 
  I would also be obliged if you would furnish me with details of the procedures you use for providing remedial training to your staff and politicians to avoid making clear arithmetic errors?
 
Many thanks,
 

 

 

2011, August 2 - 19:35 — PatParslow

Their reply...

Dear Mr Parslow

 

 
As you can imagine the Department receives a vast volume of correspondence and we endeavour to reply to all correspondence within 20 days where possible, as we did in the case of your original request.
 
With regard to the other two questions:
"Can you also furnish me with details of the qualifications of those civil servants and politicians in your department who were involved in  writing of the press release?  I am specifically interested in knowing their level of competence in areas such as mathematics and critical reasoning."

 

We are unable to provide you with this information as it is the personal data of the individuals concerned within the meaning in the Data Protection Act 1998 and disclosure would breach one or more of the data protection principles in that Act.  

 

I would also be obliged if you would furnish me with details of the procedures you use for providing remedial training to your staff and politicians to avoid making clear arithmetic errors?

 

In order to answer this question I would need to know which arithmetical errors you are referring to.  We are confident the numbers in the press release are accurate and were checked by a statistical officer.

 
 

 

 

2011, August 2 - 19:36 — PatParslow

My response

Dear Miss XXXX,

 

  I do not believe that a list of qualifications of the people involved in writing the press release would constitute a breach of the Data Protection Act, especially not if provided in aggregate.  I can see no way of identifying individuals from such information - perhaps you could enlighten me as to how that might be done?
 I fail to see why you would need to know precisely which arithemetical errors were made in order to furnish me with details of the procedures you have in place to provide training to prevent such errors from re-occurring.  To suggest that this might be the case, you are presumably implying that you have separate procedures in place to deal with errors involving, for instance, addition and fractions?  It will be absolutely adequate if you simply provide me with details of all procedures you have in place to enable your department to provide extra training to staff when errors are detected.
 However, should you feel the need to identify which course is appropriate in order to answer the question, I am quite certain that the errors in analysis are clearly put by Ben Goldacre http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/24/bad-science-local-goverment-savings-ben-goldacre - primarily highlighting the incredibly poor assertion in the press release that the potential savings identified by Opera on phone bills can somehow magically be extrapolated to all council spending, including those areas which the Opera report itself shows only capable of supporting much smaller levels of spending.
"It did its estimates on three areas: for energy bills (a £7m spend), and solicitors fees (£6m), it thought councils could save just 10%. The third category – mobile phone bills – were tiny in comparison (just £600,000) but here, and here alone, Opera reckons councils can save 20%, by getting people on better tariffs." - the press release suggesting that "The report gives the highest estimate yet of potential savings that could be achieved if councils secure better value for the £50 billion of public money they spend on procurement every year. The £10 billion figure is equal to £452 per household every year and equivalent to the salaries of almost half a million bin men or 650,000 dinner ladies." which is to say, that the 20% saving can apply across all council spending - which is clearly nonsensical given the other findings in the report.

Perhaps, if I may be so bold, if you stop trying to avoid the somewhat simple questions and focus on answering them, we may be able to avoid this discussion becoming too protracted,