Church and State blog: Declan replies to the Independent Case Examiner

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Declan replies to the Independent Case Examiner

From the infamous Haringey Council (see previous blog) back to the Department for Work and Pensions! Declan currently has Jobcentre Plus of the Department for Work and Pensions before the Information Commissioner (see blog of 21 June “Department for Work and Pensions double breaches the Data Protection Act: Letter to the Information Commissioner”), as well as the Independent Case Examiner for refusing him access to a Starting a Business course that would enable him register NAC as a company limited by guarantee.

The Independent Case Examiner (click to enlarge)

Yesterday the Independent Case Examiner, John Hanlon, got back to him, or at least one of his foot soldiers did (page 1 of the letter is archived here, page 2 here). For the record, this is Declan's reply, to be dispatched by registered post first thing tomorrow morning:

Dear Mr Hanlon

Jobcentre Plus (ICE Ref No: DWP00123/10)

Thank you for your letter dated 23 July 2010 regarding my complaint that Jobcentre Plus has failed to take timely and appropriate action to consider my request for access to a Starting a Business course. You have asked me to reply.

As I have already tried to explain, Business Link, to which I was referred by Jobcentre Plus on 11 March 2010, does not offer a traditional, classroom based, tutor led Starting a Business course. It offers only workshops and the web-based course to which you refer. I do not feel that your letter has adequately dealt with the issues I have raised.

Please would you clarify your finding in this case.

Yours sincerely

Declan Heavey

Next it's back to our MP, Lynne Featherstone (Lib Dem), who may be able to refer this complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Only last month Featherstone wrote to Declan to advise that she has written to the Home Secretary about the blocking and manipulation of our email (her letter is archived here). Of course, that too continues unabated, to the extent that Gmail for us has been a virtual right-off for months now (see blog of 21 April “Interception of communications: Declan writes to our MP”).

It just so happens that tomorrow morning we have our “First Step Meeting” with A4e, which is contracted to deliver Flexible New Deal on behalf of Jobcentre Plus. Our nearest A4e branch is ten minutes away, in fact it is almost beside the Jobcentre, and yet we have been allocated an A4e branch two bus journeys away. This is quite concerning: why would the Jobcentre send us to another area? So great, I have just uploaded the new NAC website! There is loads of work still to do on it with the transferral and adjustment of material from the old NAC site and the like, but not having something up in time for this meeting tomorrow morning has not been an option all week.

A4e will surely not tell us that provisions of the Jobseekers Act 1995, particularly our right to an adjudication officer if we are not happy with a proposed Flexible New Deal contract, no longer apply to us - not that we can do nothing about it if they do. But who knows? It was, after all, the Department for Work and Pensions which put us to the street for more than 2 1/2 years (see blog of 9 May “Declan calls for Department for Work and Pensions evidence”).

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Sunday, July 25, 2010

Declan replies to the Independent Case Examiner

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