Local Council SAR Request Refusal to Provide Correct Information

ASmallBeanToe

I am pursuing legal action and a tribunal appeal against my council for multiple issues specific to council tax and benefits. As part of this I made a SAR request for copies of all communications and records they had on my account.

Every letter the council have provided me is dated the month after the SAR request was made. All of them have a date corresponding to the date the bundle was compiled and uploaded to onedrive to then provide to me.

This is the date in the body of the letter itself, the top right hand side of the letter that is written;

Account Reference : Property Reference : Direct Dial: Please Ask For : Date :	XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX Idiots 01/01/3001

I have informed the council that the dates on the letters are incorrect. I need them to attempt to find original files or attempt to narrow down when they were written. Or just admit they've borked it and apologize.

Their response is:

"The date you are referring to appears to be the file system metadata date, rather than the date the correspondence itself was originally created or issued…. we would advise relying on the date shown within the correspondence itself when considering when the document was created or sent, rather than the date associated with the folder or file properties."

I send them a screenshot showing the bodies of several letters with these incorrect dates. The dates on all the letters are identical. They ignore me.

I chased them up today, a few days later, and they say

"Thank you for your email.

 We note your comments regarding the dates displayed within certain documents. However, a Subject Access Request entitles an individual to receive copies of personal data held by an organisation at the time the request is processed. The Council does not generate, recreate or amend records in response to a SAR and can only disclose personal data that is held within the scope of the request at the relevant time.

 The disclosure provided to you consisted of the information identified and retrieved from the Council's records when your request was processed. We are not in a position to provide alternative versions of documents or to create records that are not held.

…

 Beyond this, we are unclear what further assistance you are seeking in relation to the dates shown on the documents provided."

I clarify I'm not challenging the date range of the information provided but that the dates on the materials provided are incorrect and make the materials unusable to me.

This gets me this response:

"Your request was received on DATE X, and the information was disclosed to you on DATE Z. All data held by the Council for the requested period, from DATE to the date of disclosure, was provided to you.

 Please note that, as the disclosure took place on DATE Z, any information held up to and including that date was within the scope of the response.

 You provided an example of a file, namely "Name.docx", which is dated DATE Y. You queried this because the file appears to contain correspondence from June 2022, despite having a later file date.

 The file date of DATE Y falls within the disclosure period. Although the correspondence contained within the document relates to 2022, the later file date may be due to metadata changes or because the file was copied, transferred, or prepared for disclosure at that time."

And refuse to help further.

I will be including this in my complaints and appeals because a huge part of it is my council refusing to provide information, doing it wrong when they do, and refusing to correct things when it's pointed out to them. (I have already won half a grand in fines from them thanks to the ombudsman for this)

I need these letters properly dated for the appeals case I am assembling.

I have one or two original copies of the letters showing the original date. The council is not interested in the discrepancy. Others I have never received, and I need to be able to put them into a timeline of how I was waiting months at a time - repeatedly phoning and emailing for help - and getting nothing in return from the council.

I know what meta data is. I know what file data is. I am not stupid and crazy but my council have made me feel like I am. What are my options here? I've already contacted the ICO about failure to provide hold and provide records appropriately, but that takes weeks.

Edited this to trim out unnecessary info. Over explaining has become a bad habit directly related to my council wilfully misunderstanding me all the time.

peteuk

SAR can be refused or redacted, so they don't have to provide you with the full details, ut they should give you a reason why.

It might be they have provided you with all the details they have recorded - or within the scope of your request.

ICO is the next step.

ASmallBeanToe

They have neither refused nor redacted - they are insisting these are the correct dates the letters were written. I have a physical copy of one of them which shows the actual date, as being 4 years previous.

They just responded telling me again to stop looking at metadata and look at the body of the letter instead. I feel like I'm going insane.

I have already contacted the ICO but the tribunal evidence is due in three weeks and no one external can get back to me in that time frame.

I will try challenging them to provide the reason why the dates are incorrect and record that as well. A large part of my case is that the council dont do anything right and refuse to correct anything until you get an outside body involved so this is just piling up the examples. :<

Woodstok2000

Maybe take the same approach as the council.

If I understand it right, you're looking to show they didn't send/you didn't receive certain letters over a specific time period. The council response to your SAR shows no letters sent over that period (only letters sent much later). The SAR response proves your point, and so maybe that's what you want?

ASmallBeanToe

Yes I think that's going to have to be how this goes in. There's several issues I need to cover - one of which was not getting any responses and help when requested, and also that the council constantly make mistakes and refuse to admit they're there let alone fix them while having all my council tax calculated completely wrong. (Had me down as having two jobs, twice the income I actually have etc and kept rejecting me for council tax support that I actually qualified for).

The council have said consider all the dates to be correct, and dont understand what Im trying to get from them - not even that they recognise they are wrong but cant provide the original dates anymore. It's crazy making after a point. You'd think someone would realise that the council probably didnt send me 12 letters in one day just before they gave me the link. I would have used the accurate dates for something but instead I'll have to write up why I couldnt get them, which still demonstrates the council failing to provide information.

It is infuriating having someone keep responding to me telling me to look at the letter and not the metadata and then ignore me when I say I am looking at the letter, but this is par for the course with this council.

Thanks for taking the time to reply :)

Woodstok2000

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117177#Comment_82117177

Good luck!

Robbie64

When the council sent you documents in response to the SAR, did the production of the letters simply pull up the current date at the time the batch of letters were generated in response to the SAR? Apologies if I'm misunderstanding your first post.

If I did understand it correctly, then for audit purposes, the council should be able to replicate letters with the correct (original) date regardless of whatever date the letters are actually extracted from their computer systems.

ASmallBeanToe

Yes that's clearly what has happened here. Obvious the moment I saw it, but the council is insisting all dates correctly indicate when they were written. They insist I am looking at meta data and keep telling me to look at the body of the letter instead.

I sent them a screenshot showing the date on the page and they responded saying that the date given is within the time frame of the SAR and if I want other materials I need to make a new SAR.

I told them the date range of the SAR is irrelevant (why would I even care if I thought they'd sent me something from outside the date range? What would I be asking them to do there, delete it off my computer for me?) I dont need any other materials I need someone to understand that these dates are not correct.

Worst case scenario I will summarise this and attach the council's declaration all the letters are accurately dated with the provided digital copy of one of the letters, and the physical copy that I have that has the original - different - date on it (I only have this one). Having correctly dated correspondence would allow me to more precisely clarify the order of some events and how the responses/advice the council was providing was inappropriate and often far outside the acceptable timeframe of when I asked them for help. (Like, 3 months to get a response they told me would at most take ten days).

Blancmang25

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82117328#Comment_82117328

If I am correct(from the example in your first post) it would appear you have requested your council tax account details?

If so based on how the LA extract the information from their system it will probably show a date after your SAR request, however the details(letters) they have provided you should show which periods the council tax is being charged for and should also show any council tax support awarded to that period, discounts, exemptions etc:

The council tax letters will have been produced everytime the account has/had been amended on various dates, as I have said it will depend on how they extract the details from the system, so the date may be the same on all of them.

Have you also requested the details of how they have calculated the Council Tax Support? This may have been actioned by the council tax department or their benefit department, each LA have different processing systems.

ASmallBeanToe

I have requested all the records kept on my account, including all the communications they have stored. These items in particular are letters in response to queries and complaints. I know why the dates look like this - my issue is that that are insisting this hasnt happened, the date is correct and demonstrates the date the letter was written, and that when I say the date is wrong I am looking at the metadata (eg; date modified, date created).

The reason I flagged the date being after the SAR request is because these are supposed to be historical records and if they bothered looking at the fact the date is a) the same on all of them and b) from after the SAR request when the council had no contact with me, they'd work out the dates are wrong.

I have all my council tax notices and a bunch of them are wrong but for different reasons, the dates on all of them are accurate because they're the PDF versions. I have the details on how the rejected me for council tax support and all the paperwork to show how that was done wrong over and over. I feel like I've been living through a really boring version of Brazil tbh.

I'm going to ask them to have someone look at the letters, confirm the council says they indicate the date they were written, and then append them to my appeal next to the one original I have showing they're wrong. I'm also going to present the GDPR guidelines that information has to be accurate and updated when they're informed it's wrong, because having correct dates would help, but after poking about I've excepted my council just havent learned anything and arent going to do their job properly.

Thanks for the responses everyone :)

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82116722#Comment_82116722

Could it be that they at some point in the 4 years since the letter (you have) has been digitised on their system (storage of paper is expensive) & their system uses the date of digitising?