The ICO Strikes Back

In early 2022, I made a Subject Access Request to both the local council and its LADO as they had not been as transparent as they should have been after my issues with my previous school and their reluctance to help me with my whistleblowing. 

I did eventually get a general SAR back from the council. However, it was woefully lacking in its content – mirroring the SAR experience I had had with my previous school. 

They recommended that I contact the ICO if I was unhappy with their response. Not one to give up, I did so immediately. It has taken months for the ICO to get back to me. But at least they did…

_____________

30 November 2022 

Dear Mr Gwinnett

Thank you for contacting the ICO with your concerns about (the) Borough. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you. We contacted the Council for further information about the handling of your request and have just received their response. However, we can now provide you with an assessment in this matter.

The view of the ICO is that (the) Borough has not complied with its data protection obligations. This is due to the time delay in providing you with a response. In addition, your request can be made to any member of staff at the Council and they should be sufficiently aware of how a subject access request works to pass that on to the appropriate member of staff. You should not have been advised after almost a month that you needed to refer the request to them yourself.

However, the Council has provided information on the exemption used for the data that you requested on the allegation made against you. The exemption was applied as the Council believed that even redacted you would have been able to identify the individual concerned. The ICO is satisfied that this exemption has been applied correctly. We have advised the Council of our view in this matter.

All complaints are retained on our system and should the ICO consider any regulatory action against the Council in the future we may use the details of your case in our consideration. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Yours sincerely,
(…)

Lead Case Officer

Information Commissioner's Office

__________

My response:

Dear (Lead Case Officer),

Thank you for your e-mail. I welcome your findings overall. However, I must express my disappointment re the fact that (the borough) have tried to use the excuse of an "exemption used for the data that you requested on the allegation made against you". 

On the one hand, I am fully aware of who made the false allegation against me due to slip-ups from (…) HR and a wide network of ex-pupil parents looking out for me. I have no interest in ever communicating with the clearly troubled child, but it might be of interest to you that they did have a close link to one of the governors from (the) School.

On the other hand, and far more relevantly here, my SAR to the council itself was not solely related to the allegation: it was much wider than that. I was looking for information about - for instance: duty of care after my nervous breakdown of Nov 19, an attempt to put me on capability, correspondence between the school and the council related to my links to the NEU. The SAR also included a request to be given a copy of my personnel file. The request was subsequently repeated. Neither request has even been acknowledged.

It seems to me that (the borough) is either being quite disingenuous or incompetent. I would be grateful if you could look into this as obviously I am extremely disillusioned with the integrity and lack of duty of care of both the council and (the) School.

Best regards,

Alex

__________

Followed by this: 

Dear (Lead Case Officer),

Further to my email this morning, please find an e-mail below making the SAR. You will note that the allegation made about me was not even mentioned.

Regards,

Alex

Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2022 9:52:46 AM
Subject: Subject access request

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to request that (the council’s) HR supply personal data held about me, which I am entitled to receive under data protection law, held in:

o   my personnel file.

o   emails from September 2018 to date to me or with my name or initials included in the main body.

If you need any more information, please let me know as soon as possible. I would prefer to receive the data in printed form.

It may be helpful for you to know that data protection law requires you to respond to a request for personal data within one calendar month.

If you do not normally deal with these requests, please pass this letter to your data protection officer or relevant staff member.

(...)

Best regards,

Alex Gwinnett

_____________

to be continued…

Waiting for closure...

It is now five years on from the onset of a mass exodus of excellent and experienced education workers.

Three years on from my breakdown (followed by 4 others leaving due to their worsening mental health) and general gaslighting/victimisation of union reps -and to be honest- anyone ‘in the way’.

Two years of exploring various avenues to try to get some form of accountability, acknowledgement, apology – justice basically.

So much time and so much effort. Hours on the phone, hours writing e-mails, letters, and this blog.

And for what?

Very little indeed.

We have been let down by the establishment. Sure, there has been the odd sympathetic ear, but they have been able to do very little.

An article was written in a local newspaper: this got the story out to a certain extent but nothing came of it.

I have been informed of many other instances of manipulation, untruths and incompetence from the school since the article. Children are leaving. Parents are angry. The staff is increasingly inexperienced.

People may be more aware of what has been going on. But no steps have been taken to remedy the situation.

˚˚˚

The message I have been getting is that our complaints are not in the public interest.

Professionals’ mental health.

Basic workers’ rights.

Duty of care.

Disgruntled parents.

Children not wanting to go to school

A culture of fear.

Not in the public interest…

˚˚˚

Blocked by shoddy policies drawn up to favour leaders.

Blocked by governors and a council too weak to admit that mistakes have been made and to stand up for its workforce. Such a lack of integrity. Such disillusionment.

Higher agencies (DfE, ICO, independent investigator, ombudsman organisation, Ofsted) either genuinely do lack the power to deal with this type of whistleblowing, or they have been ignoring, rebuffing or misleading us.

Whichever way you look at it, the cards are stacked against us. The system is f***ed.

˚˚˚

And yet here I am.

A glutton for punishment? Stupid? Possibly a bit.

Passionate? Stubborn? Definitely.

I cannot let this go until I have some closure. I may not like the closure I get, but I will keep fighting until I hit a definite dead end.

˚˚˚

Borrowing from Beckett: sorry Sam!

Let's go

We can't.

Why not?

We're...  

carte blanche

In response to an online article written by my previous head about women in leadership (which for obvious reasons I cannot include), a person -who is very close to me- wrote this comment:

A bland piece which in no way reflects the typical working style of the author, who since the start of her headship has been responsible for a huge churn of staff and concerns over her approach from colleagues, parents and the wider school community. There are multiple allegations of the head bullying and victimising staff, yet here she writes about nurture and building aspiration through ‘living your values’ and ‘having a strong sense of moral purpose’. It’s hard to see how this is real when she has created a culture where staff and children have been made really quite miserable. It would be wonderful if you could say the head was enthused by leading and developing her team rather than spitefully victimising so many of them, or that the children feel supported and encouraged when she has never shown interest in any of the children as individuals. You have to wonder, really, why a person works in education if that very basic focus – wanting each and every child to thrive – is missing. It's infuriating as well as wholly misleading – as the author well knows – to interpret the numerous concerns raised about her behaviour at [the school] as the result of narrowly focused and gender stereotyped ideas of what heads ‘should’ look like. The many concerns are about what she has done and what she has said. To characterise this as some kind of sexism is absurd as well as insulting. Is it really believable that this head has had to further, entirely by herself, the progressive cause against an entrenched culture of misogyny at [the] School?

It was not published. The journal advised them that they could not put it up:

Dear [X],

I trust this finds you well. My apologies for not being able to approve your comment. The sole reason is that your common (sic) is in legal terms libellous and I as editor of the magazine would be responsible for publishing it. As such, in order to publish it, I would need to hold evidence that would enable me to defend publication in court should the magazine been sued after publication.

I don't for one second doubt the veracity of what you say, but the fact remains that I would not be able to defend my publication of your comment and so cannot put the magazine in that position.

To publish something like this we'd need to run our own investigation and collate our own evidence and testimony – which is something this magazine is not really set up for, being a best practice, pedagogically-driven publication.

I do hope you understand my position.

All my best

(…)

Editor

Yet again, that good old lack of accountability rears its ugly head. Carte blanche for her to be able to share spurious claims and platitudes to her heart's content. Without any checks or balances.

Three years

Three years ago, virtually to the day (05/11/19), I had my horrific nervous breakdown.

Since then, my life has changed in many ways. 

Initially very unpleasant. I was quite ill for a long time preceding the breakdown but far worse, and for far longer subsequently. 

I am still dealing with PTSD.

But I have been healing thanks to my family, friends, and current school.

The ethos of my current school is very much based on nurture. Its headteacher is loved by children, parents, and last but not least: its staff.

She cares deeply about all of us. She knows we care deeply about the children, and (I hope) her.

She trusts us. We trust her.

She lets us take risks.

She is an inspiration.

Unlike a certain other person…

Recently, my PTSD reared its ugly head unexpectedly and sent me on a downward spiral. It happens. 

I will never be able to forgive the person who caused this but this time I have taken concrete steps: I have talked it through with my GP, I am having blood tests, and I am beginning a new wave of counselling.

I have yet to receive any official acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of my previous head, or to elicit any action from her school’s Board of Education or Council. And while it may never happen; it will not stop me from trying.

I feel vindicated by the support I am getting for this blog: from parents and colleagues from both my current and previous schools, and further afield.

Just yesterday, I received this lovely message: “I have been meaning to say how moved and outraged I was by your blog all about your treatment at your last school, a dreadful situation (…). I thought it very brave to speak out online and am I'm sure I speak for many parents and kids when I say thank goodness you're out of there and that [the school] snapped you up!”

To all those who have been supporting me: