Secret Bournemouth and Poole College Wessex Youth Orchestra rehearsal schedules for 2017/2018

(Post made at 1620 UK BST time on 3 Sep 2018 in a personal capacity.  Please see here for important background and disclosure of interests).

Further to this post last year, below are the Wessex Youth Orchestra (WYO) rehearsal schedules for the past academic year.  They are still marked secret on the CWYM website ("for WYO members and families only", see http://www.cwym-music.com/wyo-membership-guidelines.html), and on the schedules themselves (with the exception of the Summer 2018 schedule - a sign of progress?): "Private and confidential".

This secrecy continues to be bizarre and in the past parents have mentioned to me, on learning of this practice (after their child had recently joined the WYO): "I understand that the rehearsal schedules are secret - what's that about??".

As in the past, I had to use the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) in order to obtain the schedules, and the Bournemouth and Poole College has again tried to prevent their publication by claiming that copyright prevents them from being published without the copyright holder's permission.

The Bournemouth and Poole College's poor compliance with the Freedom of Information Act continues, having failed to reply to internal review requests after almost a year

(Post made at 1618 UK BST time on 6 Jun 2018 in a personal capacity.  Please see here for important background and disclosure of interests).

The Bournemouth and Poole College is extremely late in responding to two Freedom of Information Act internal reviews:

How often have fire drills taken place at the Centre for Wessex Young Musicians? 

(see here).

and

Discrepancies in information given by College about communicating Wessex Youth Orchestra rehearsal dates to schools

(see here).

A year ago, Bournemouth and Poole College and the Centre for Wessex Young Musicians carried out an act of senseless destruction, which was not in the interests of the children in my opinion

(Post made at 1727 UK BST time on 11 May 2018 in a personal capacity.  Please see here for important background and disclosure of interests).

An act of destruction

11 May 2017: an act of destruction at the College and the Centre for Wessex Young Musicians

In my view, a year ago (on 11 May 2017), Bournemouth and Poole College and the Centre for Wessex Young Musicians carried out an act of senseless destruction, which was not in the interests of the children or the Centre.  By dismissing a very popular teacher after 13 years of extremely dedicated service, without notice, explanation or thanks, and 3 weeks into the start of the summer term. The day after she had raised concerns informally over the management style at the Centre. She left that meeting (with a senior person at the College) feeling that her concerns had been listened to, and with the understanding that things were going to improve. Yet the very next day she was dismissed in such a callous, senseless manner.

The teacher concerned - my wife - was devastated.  Many, many, parents told us that they were too, and most important, 60 to 70 children from the Wessex Starter and Middle Strings were unable to understand why a teacher they had known in several cases for years (and in many cases had been very fond of) had disappeared suddenly, without reason or even being able to say goodbye.  Many parents found it incredibly difficult to explain to their children what had happened. Readers will have to judge for themselves whether the College's actions then and since are in line with its stated culture.

Bournemouth and Poole College: a failure of governance because of a lack of accountability and little apparent concern for ethics

(Post made at 2245 BST on 25 Sep 2017 in a personal capacity.  Please see here for important background and disclosure of interests). 

In my opinion a flawed complaints system (which is being used to silence criticism rather than address it) is preventing accountability for poor practices.  In what way is the College accountable for what I believe to be very poor ethical behaviour, if it accepts the results of a manifestly flawed (and itself unethical, because of incorrect statements that no witnesses came forward to support complaints) "independent" complaints investigation?  Where is the accountability and ethics in the College refusing to allow an appeal despite the clear flaws in the investigation?  Where is the accountability in the College refusing to allow my concerns to be passed on to its Board? How is the College's refusal to investigate items complained about not a violation of its Complaints Policy? Aren't all these things further evidence of unethical behaviour and a failure of culture, governance and leadership at the Bournemouth and Poole College?

Bournemouth and Poole College "Long Overdue" with their response to Freedom of Information Request (about discrepancies in their responses)

Post made in a personal capacity at 0945 BST on 1 July 2017. Please see here for important background and disclosure of interests).

Discrepancies in information given by College about communicating Wessex Youth Orchestra rehearsal dates to schools

I have just received an email from WhatDoTheyKnow informing me that the College is long overdue in providing a response to my Freedom of Information request of 4 May:

I have just asked once more for the College to comply with their obligations under the law by responding without further delay.

Freedom of Information Request (no 3, 20 April): complete correspondence, including College Response (late, 6 June)

(Post made at 2318 UK time on 07 Jun 2017. This post is made on a personal basis, as a member - and until 4 February 2017 Chairman -of SWYM because of my significant concerns about the running of the musically excellent Wessex Youth Orchestra, and about recent aspects of the governance of SWYM and the management of the CWYM and College. Please see https://musicmattersandculture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/welcome-disclosure-of-interests-terms.html for important background and disclosure of interests).

Yesterday 6 June I finally received (the main part, but not all, in particular no information about which schools the schedule was sent to, presumably none) a response to my Freedom of Information request of 20 April, which was due under the Act by 23 May at the latest. (Previous posts referring to this particular request are here and here, but I have put the entire email chain below for ease of reference, with most recent emails at the top). 

Note: the WYO Schedule attached to Mr Roberts' email of 6 June can be found here: page 1 and page 2.

Bournemouth and Poole College delaying response (already overdue) to request made under Freedom of Information Act 2000

Please see the comments I have just added to my post of 17 May, here.  The College are either delaying their response to a request which they should have provided two days ago under the Act, or are declining to answer it altogether.  I hope it is the former.

Freedom of Information request (no. 3) to the College dated 20 April 2017

(Published at 0752 UK time on 18 May 2017. Copy of email sent on 20 April 2017 to freedomofinformation@bpc.ac.uk, the address at the Bournemouth and Poole College for Freedom of Information Act requests. I received an acknowledgement on 24 April. The requirement to respond within 20 working days means that the response is due - after allowing for the Bank Holiday on 1 May - by the end of Tuesday 23 May at the latest. This post is made on a personal basis, as a member - and until early February 2017 Chairman -of SWYM because of my significant concerns about some aspects of the running of the otherwise excellent Wessex Youth Orchestra, and about recent aspects of the governance of SWYM. Please see https://musicmattersandculture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/welcome-disclosure-of-interests-terms.html for important background and disclosure of interests).

Email Title: Request under Freedom of Information Act

Dear Mr Roberts

As the Centre for Wessex Young Musicians website still implies (at http://www.cwym-music.com/wyo-membership-guidelines.html) that the Wessex Youth Orchestra rehearsal schedule is confidential to WYO players and their families, in contravention of Jacqui Kitcher (WYO Director Susanna Riddell’s line manager)’s statement to the SWYM Committee last December that she expected the schedules to be published, please would you send me (in electronic form):

1. A copy of the WYO rehearsal schedule for this term (summer 2017), together with a copy of any associated instructions, and a list of which other organisations (and the roles of the people at those organisations, e.g. head of music at a school) the schedule has been sent to.
2. In what proportion of Freedom of Information Act responses does the Bournemouth & Poole College claim (as it did in the responses to my two previous requests, contrary to ICO guidance at https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1150/intellectual_property_rights_and_disclosures_under_the_foia.pdf) that copyright would be infringed by publication of the responses?

As before, please would you acknowledge receipt of this request? Thank you.

Yours sincerely

Patrick Lee

Freedom of Information Request (no 4) to the College asking for clarification of discrepancies in their responses

(This post is made on a personal basis, as a member - and until early February 2017 Chairman -of SWYM because of my significant concerns about some aspects of the running of the otherwise excellent Wessex Youth Orchestra, and about recent aspects of the governance of SWYM. Please see https://musicmattersandculture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/welcome-disclosure-of-interests-terms.html for important background and disclosure of interests)

Further to https://musicmattersandculture.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/bpcollege-freedom-of-information.html I have just made (as indeed any member of the public is entitled to do) a further request to clarify the key question as to whether the dates of the WYO's frequent extra rehearsals (4 during weekdays last term) have been shared with schools or not.
You can see the new request on the  What Do They Know site at:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/discrepancies_in_information_giv#outgoing-646928.

Please note that the two hyperlinks I provided in the WhatDoTheyKnow request seem to have included an extra closing bracket as part of the hyperlink (probably my mistake as it is the first time I have used the WhatDoTheyKnow site to make a request), so lead to "Page not found" errors.  The correct hyperlinks are:

For Freedom of Information Request response F0082: https://musicmattersandculture.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/bpcollege-freedom-of-information.html

For WYO Director 's website page on her role as WYO Director:
http://www.susannariddell.com/wyo-director

Secret WYO rehearsal schedules which both the WYO Director and the College repeatedly tried to stop publication of

(This post is made on a personal basis, as a member - and until recently Chairman -of SWYM because of my significant concerns about some aspects of the running of the otherwise excellent Wessex Youth Orchestra, and about recent aspects of the governance of SWYM. Please see https://musicmattersandculture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/welcome-disclosure-of-interests-terms.html for important background and disclosure of interests).

Almost six months after I first asked for the autumn schedule, and delays in obtaining it under Freedom of Information, followed by repeated attempts by the Bournemouth and Poole College (the College) to avoid the information being published (by false claims that it would infringe copyright to do so) I am now able to publish the Wessex Youth Orchestra (WYO)'s rehearsal schedule for Autumn 2016, and also for Spring 2017.

I pointed out several times to the College that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has made clear that copyright is no bar to publication of responses received under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and that copyright is not infringed by publishing the information providing the copyright is acknowledged. (See paragraph 18 of https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1150/intellectual_property_rights_and_disclosures_under_the_foia.pdf).   The College did not reply for several weeks and when I asked a third time for clarification came back with "we acknowledge the regulations" which evaded the question.

When an organisation repeatedly claims that a list (of rehearsal dates and times, and instructions to children/parents about confidentiality and how many rehearsals must be attended) is COPYRIGHT and publishing it would breach that copyright, then one is entering PrivateEye territory. Such a claim stretches credulity and smacks of a desperate attempt to avoid publication of the said schedules.

Freedom of Information request to the College

I put in a freedom of information request to the College on 20 December 2016 to request information which I had previously asked for internally but without success.