Feedback form sent by the College to WYO parents omitted section on the standard of tuition, other groups had this

(Post made at 0911 UK time on 18 May 2017. 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).

Last week, the Bournemouth and Poole College sent Centre for Wessex Young Musicians parents (but not us, which is improper) a feedback form.  The forms sent to parents of Wessex Junior Fanfare, Wessex Youth Fanfare, Wessex Starter Strings and Wessex Middle Strings included a section asking for comments on the standard of tuition received by the children.

The form sent to parents of Wessex Youth Orchestra children did not include that section. Why?

(I'm not suggesting that the standard of tuition is poor in any of the groups, just that this smacks of bias and a reluctance to be accountable).

My suggestions for improvement at the Centre for Wessex Young Musicians

(Post added at 0825 UK time on 18 May 2017. Most of this content is originally from a Facebook post I made on 12 May 2017, but now added here because it is relevant to improving the culture of both CWYM and SWYM).

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).

I understand that Centre for Wessex Young Musicians parents (again except us, which is improper) have been sent an email with a feedback form asking for suggestions for improvements. So here are mine:

1. [this para slightly reworded 1622 UK time 13 May 2017] Beverley (or someone else suitable) should replace Susanna as Director of the Centre. Susanna to carry on as WYO Director, but with very close supervision by Centre Director.
2. The SWYM Committee to be allowed to set its own agenda (without a veto by WYO or CWYM Director) as per its current Constitution.
3. WYO Director's manager to make sure that she consults properly with WSS / WMS Conductor and Fanfare conductor rather than imposing by dictat.
4. Honest, regular communication with schools by publishing the schedule of extra WYO rehearsals on the website
5. All staff (not just the WYO Director) to be able to make suggestions to SWYM Committee and to get a fairer share of the funding. Parents to be able to make suggestions to SWYM Committee too.
6. All significant expenditure items that need to be paid by SWYM to be approved in advance by the SWYM Committee.
7. SWYM Committee and Centre staff to look into whether the gap between WYF/WMS and WYO has become too high? If so why? Eg has the increasing number of extra rehearsals that the WYO has been getting contributed to this? With a view to working out how to either reduce the gap or to fill it, so that players who feel that they have outgrown WYF/WMS have somewhere to go and we don't lose them from the Centre. (If we lose them, then they might miss the opportunity to develop their music playing to the stage where they are good enough to have near lifelong enjoyment from it). If an intermediate orchestra is needed to fill the gap, then SWYM to work out how to finance it.

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

BPCollege/WYO "Key Facts" document for schools gets the facts wrong and omits key information ...

(Paragraph added 0440 UK time 12 May 2017: 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)

No wonder the College and WYO Director wanted to avoid the WYO rehearsal schedules being published.
It seems that a document was recently sent by the Bournemouth and Poole College to schools, entitled  "Centre for Wessex Young Musicians - Key Facts", with sub heading "Communication and Cooperation between the CWYM/WYO and local schools".

Unfortunately, this document gives a materially incorrect picture of what has happened in recent terms (the only ones I have details for, because the rehearsal schedules were kept secret).

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

BPCollege Freedom of Information response 14 Mar 2017 to request made 20 Dec 2016

(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).

Below is the response I eventually received from the College to a request I made on 20 December 2016 - I was informed that the delay in their reply was due to my request (and several follow up ones requesting an acknowledgement of receipt) having gone into their spam folder. The attachment to 1. is shown as the second schedule (not the first, although that was also - incorrectly-  headed as Autumn schedule) in this previous post. 

Note that paragraph 3 says that schools are told of events (i.e. concerts) for which permission letters, rather than about those extra rehearsals which take place on weekdays.  

Note also the unusual request by the College not to publish the Freedom of Information response. (I did reply to Mr Roberts giving my reasons and challenging the claim that publication might infringe copyright, quoting the Information Commissioner's Office's own documentation which makes clear that providing copyright is acknowledged, and no commercial use of made without permission, copyright is no bar to publication of FoIA responses).  

The attachment referred to in 5. below is here (note that this appears to be the original advert issued for the post of WYO/CWYM Director from 2008 and the job description does not seem to have been changed since then).  I did consider redacting the salary information, but a) this was a public advert from 2008, b) it is 9 years old, and c) there is no bar under FoIA to publishing it, and d) my comment is that (as I have mentioned previously to the College in comments about sustainability/best practice is to avoid the need for large sudden increases in course fees by making small regular increments to keep pace with inflation/market rates), like other rates paid to CWYM staff, it seems low compared to the quality of the work done. (I reiterate what I have said many times before, i have no criticisms of the quality of the output from the Centre, my concerns are to do with its current management style and the degree of cooperation/communication with schools and other musical ensembles in the area).  

Start of Freedom of Information request response

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.