Avon Fire Authority
| Case Outcome | Complaint not upheld |
| Subject Matter | Other |
| Court | Information Commissioner (UK) |
| Record Number | IC-84864-K9N5 |
| Date | 23 November 2021 |
| Respondent | Avon Fire Authority |
Reference: IC-84864-K9N5
1
Decision notice
Date: 23 November 2021
Public Authority: Avon Fire Authority
Address: Police & Fire Headquarters
PO Box 37
Valley Road
Portishead
Bristol
BS20 8JJ
Decision (including any steps ordered)
1. The complainant has requested information from Avon Fire Authority
(AFA) about its financial accounting. AFA refused the request as
2. The Commissioner’s decision is that AFA was entitled to rely on section
14(1) to refuse the request.
3. The Commissioner requires no steps as a result of this decision.
Background
4. On 2 February 2017, the Home Office was commissioned to conduct a
statutory inspection of AFA, following persistent allegations of bullying
and financial mis-management which AFA had not satisfactorily
addressed.
Reference: IC-84864-K9N5
2
5. The inspection report was published on 19 July 2017
1
. It was critical of
AFA’s governance and leadership and it highlighted a number of areas
which required change
2
.
6. AFA conducted an investigation into the findings of the report. Several
senior members of staff subsequently left their posts.
7. The complainant started to make enquiries of her own about AFA’s
financial accounting practices, which she believed had not been covered
in the Home Office inspection. She uncovered a number of anomalies
and secured an investigation by AFA’s external auditor, Deloitte, into
various matters. However, she was not satisfied with the investigation,
which she felt had not kept to the terms agreed, or its outcome, and she
continued to submit requests for information on accounting matters.
Request and response
8. On 25 June 2020, the complainant wrote to AFA and requested the
following information under the FOIA:
“Please provide details of all manual entry errors identified in RAM
[Real Asset Management – AFA’s accounting software] including
journal type entries etc (i.e. all entries not created by the automated
calculations of the reconfigured RAM software), and the corrections
made in RAM and/or in the accounts, as well as indicating those errors
that have not been corrected in RAM and/or in the annual accounts,
including those made in the dozens of RAM categories where I found
clearly wrong manual adjustments, some in the millions of pounds.
This information should be readily available, in Deloitte’s detailed
investigation and/or audit papers which they will have provided
to/consulted over with AFRS [Avon Fire & Rescue Service], and also in
the RAM audit trail. I wish to see all such details, no matter what year
they relate to, that were incorrect (including historically) as per the
RAM entries/figures at the time the figures for the draft 2018/19
accounts were produced.
1
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa
ds/attachment_data/file/630183/6_3502_HO_KG_Avon_Report_Web.pdf
2
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-40485853
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