West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership
Discussion
As a resident of West Yorkshire I often look at the Casualty Reduction Partnership website to check what they are up to at the moment and read their views (generally to the detriment of my blood pressure!) - the website is here.
I recently asked a question about one of the news items that was on the site and found that the only way I could get an answer was to give them my full name and address and allow them to print this (almost in full) on the website. This to me feels like an infringement of my rights. Surely as a publicly funded body they should be accountable and answer questions without these conditions. I initially gave them my address but said I did not give permission to publish it and got this response:
I recently asked a question about one of the news items that was on the site and found that the only way I could get an answer was to give them my full name and address and allow them to print this (almost in full) on the website. This to me feels like an infringement of my rights. Surely as a publicly funded body they should be accountable and answer questions without these conditions. I initially gave them my address but said I did not give permission to publish it and got this response:
Philip Gwynne of West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership said:
It is the policy of West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership to respond only to comments or queries where the sender has supplied a full name and contact details.
The Partnership also makes it clear that it reserves the right to publish comments or queries to its website (or other publications) in full or in part for public relations, publicity marketing materials and similar, so that others who may have the same or similar comments or queries may share and benefit from the correspondence.
By submitting a question to be answered by the partnership, you have agreed that your question and the response to it may be used for this purpose.
Do you still wish to have your question answered?
Having, very reluctantly, given permission and my question and the response being published on the site, I have just emailed to ask how they justify this policy of publishing personal details. Does anyone know if they can get away with this if legally challenged?The Partnership also makes it clear that it reserves the right to publish comments or queries to its website (or other publications) in full or in part for public relations, publicity marketing materials and similar, so that others who may have the same or similar comments or queries may share and benefit from the correspondence.
By submitting a question to be answered by the partnership, you have agreed that your question and the response to it may be used for this purpose.
Do you still wish to have your question answered?
andyps said:
As a resident of West Yorkshire I often look at the Casualty Reduction Partnership website to check what they are up to at the moment and read their views (generally to the detriment of my blood pressure!) - the website is here.
I recently asked a question about one of the news items that was on the site and found that the only way I could get an answer was to give them my full name and address and allow them to print this (almost in full) on the website. This to me feels like an infringement of my rights. Surely as a publicly funded body they should be accountable and answer questions without these conditions. I initially gave them my address but said I did not give permission to publish it and got this response:
Are they actually going to publish your address ?I recently asked a question about one of the news items that was on the site and found that the only way I could get an answer was to give them my full name and address and allow them to print this (almost in full) on the website. This to me feels like an infringement of my rights. Surely as a publicly funded body they should be accountable and answer questions without these conditions. I initially gave them my address but said I did not give permission to publish it and got this response:
Philip Gwynne of West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership said:
It is the policy of West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership to respond only to comments or queries where the sender has supplied a full name and contact details.
The Partnership also makes it clear that it reserves the right to publish comments or queries to its website (or other publications) in full or in part for public relations, publicity marketing materials and similar, so that others who may have the same or similar comments or queries may share and benefit from the correspondence.
By submitting a question to be answered by the partnership, you have agreed that your question and the response to it may be used for this purpose.
Do you still wish to have your question answered?
Having, very reluctantly, given permission and my question and the response being published on the site, I have just emailed to ask how they justify this policy of publishing personal details. Does anyone know if they can get away with this if legally challenged?The Partnership also makes it clear that it reserves the right to publish comments or queries to its website (or other publications) in full or in part for public relations, publicity marketing materials and similar, so that others who may have the same or similar comments or queries may share and benefit from the correspondence.
By submitting a question to be answered by the partnership, you have agreed that your question and the response to it may be used for this purpose.
Do you still wish to have your question answered?
In theory your name and local Town would be acceptable as this would generate a larger radius and enable you to remain anonymous. Get them to change it. However, I would ask them why they need your name and full address in order to complain/raise an issue with them. Dependant upon their answer they may be in breach of the DPA in that they are using information provided for a different purpose.
To bring this topic back to the top, the very nice people at the casualty reduction partnership have, of course, published my details and a response to my question, but have failed to answer it. I now have an email trail which has 18 messages in it, but no answer. The original question I asked related to the news article which was published on November 17th - link here - and my question was about the corresponding figures for West Yorkshire, basically, what are the percentage reduction figures for the time period 2001 - 2006, how well are the EU figures being met on a local basis. I thought this would be an easy question on which to get an answer, but seemingly not.
Does anyone else want to ask the question and see what happens?
In the latest response from the wonderful Phillip Gwynne he says that as I keep asking the same question no more correspondence will be entered into! I have, of course, replied stating that I keep hoping for an answer, what does he have to hide?
Does anyone else want to ask the question and see what happens?
In the latest response from the wonderful Phillip Gwynne he says that as I keep asking the same question no more correspondence will be entered into! I have, of course, replied stating that I keep hoping for an answer, what does he have to hide?
Been there, done that.
Had a similar debate with my County Council and the statistics they were using to justify spending £100k's on traffic calming. Used the Freedom of Information Act to get the data. They were obstructive and eventually invited me to their offices to view the data, needless to say there was no justification, quite the opposite in fact!
I then continued to pressure them to demonstrate how they were going to reduce KSIs with the introduction of traffic calming, similar experience to you, refused to answer the question and eventually stated they would not respond in future.
Took the matter up with local councillors, they had supported the scheme and did not have the intellect to understand statistics etc. Response form them - "we rely on the council experts to advise us".
They also undertook a consultation exercise that was flawed, they did admit that the consultation failed to meet the councils own policies and guidelines, and then it took numerous letters with the final letter asking them to respond with a Yes or No, instead of proving a long scrawl trying to justify their actions.
Alicat
Had a similar debate with my County Council and the statistics they were using to justify spending £100k's on traffic calming. Used the Freedom of Information Act to get the data. They were obstructive and eventually invited me to their offices to view the data, needless to say there was no justification, quite the opposite in fact!
I then continued to pressure them to demonstrate how they were going to reduce KSIs with the introduction of traffic calming, similar experience to you, refused to answer the question and eventually stated they would not respond in future.
Took the matter up with local councillors, they had supported the scheme and did not have the intellect to understand statistics etc. Response form them - "we rely on the council experts to advise us".
They also undertook a consultation exercise that was flawed, they did admit that the consultation failed to meet the councils own policies and guidelines, and then it took numerous letters with the final letter asking them to respond with a Yes or No, instead of proving a long scrawl trying to justify their actions.
Alicat
I was initially concerned about the publication of my details - now that has happened, and I still object in principle to that, I would like an answer to the subsequent question I asked which was for clarification of the term "across the board" which was used in the reply to me - link here - in terms of actual numbers for the reduction in casualties in West Yorkshire. Should be simple enough for them to answer I would think...
And now if you look at that link you all know my name and where I live!
And now if you look at that link you all know my name and where I live!
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