Pothole Claim - FOI data received

[Deleted User]

You're not interested in the background to this but in short, I, and many other residents, of my village have suffered damage to our vehicle(s) as the result of hitting potholes on a rural road.

I've followed the guide on here and submitted an FOI request, using the template, and with 30 minutes to go to the time limit the respective council sent me the data.

HOWEVER. It is heavily redacted. In fact, they have removed ALL the dates from the data rendering it fairly useless.

They claim -

The council feels that disclosure of this information could be used for the making fraudulent insurance claims outside of the civil proceedings process. It therefore considers that this information exempt from disclosure under EIR exception 12 (5)(b) - information disclosure that could adversely affect formal legal proceedings.

Are they within their rights to do this? Any advice on how to respond?

It's obviously very hard to prove that inspections have been carried out to schedule and repairs made within time-limits if I have no dates to work with.

AdrianC

.Griff. wrote: »

Are they within their rights to do this?

Yes.

It's obviously very hard to prove that inspections have been carried out to schedule and repairs made within time-limits if I have no dates to work with.

No, it's very simple. You claim for the times you suffered damage from hitting the potholes, and if the council are outside of the timescales of liability for that particular pothole on that date, they are under a legal obligation to pay.

Obviously, you know what pothole caused damage when, right?

Think about it - if they sent a list of all the times and dates they were outside the liability timescales, that does absolutely nothing to help legitimate claims, but is an absolute scammer's charter.

[Deleted User]

AdrianC wrote: »

No, it's very simple. You claim for the times you suffered damage from hitting the potholes, and if the council are outside of the timescales of liability for that particular pothole on that date, they are under a legal obligation to pay.

You think I haven't tried that already!?! I've submitted a claim, with photos, locations, times, dates etc

I was told, and I quote, that inspections are carried out by "Double manned driven inspections".. However "Due to the poor weather and snow covering the road surface it was not possible to conduct visible checks in the weeks preceding your claim". They then point me in the directions of their insurers.

Have you had snow in December? Did it cover your roads for two weeks? I know we haven't. Not single snowflake!

You say they're legally obliged to pay. Yet they're quite happy inventing localised weather events so excuse me if I have zero faith in them doing the right thing.

jimbo6977

The refusal kinda makes sense but why does the cynic in me think that every specific claim would be answered by a printout detailing a "within timescales" inspection?

AdrianC

jimbo6977 wrote: »

The refusal kinda makes sense but why does the cynic in me think that every specific claim would be answered by a printout detailing a "within timescales" inspection?

Cynicism, or an accusation of systematic and institutionalised criminal fraud that - if somebody took a claim to court - would become perjury...?

If you're going down that line, then surely the dates in the FoI answer would be false anyway...?

jimbo6977

Well my post overlapped with the op's reply and it seems my cynicism is entirely justified.
Sadly.

AdrianC

.Griff. wrote: »

I was told, and I quote, that inspections are carried out by "Double manned driven inspections"..

Yup, and as a parish councillor, I go on them. They're done by the "localities steward" for the area, employed by the outsourcing company. The PC want potholes reporting and filling... It doesn't "cost" either of us anything - quite the opposite, it's in our interests to make sure as much is fixed as possible. I have a friend who is a localities steward for another council, too. They cover a broad swathe of our county, and the driverounds are scheduled way in advance. Anything that gets reported online is checked and confirmed asap.

[Deleted User]

AdrianC wrote: »

non-pertinent information.

That's great, not really relevant but thanks anyway.

As for the rest of my post you elected not to quote?

jimbo6977

The entire inspection schedule might well be false but you'd be better placed to uncover the falsehoods if you had a whole supposed schedule to pick holes in.

AdrianC

.Griff. wrote: »

That's great, not really relevant but thanks anyway.

As for the rest of my post you elected not to quote?

I'm terribly sorry if explaining why the whole basis for the conspiracy doesn't have any basis in reality is a little inconvenient...

jimbo6977

So how do you explain the nonexistent snow?