Church and State blog: Greater London Authority: Declan's complaint against the Mayor of London's Rough Sleeping Team at City Hall is reworked by the Authority and dismissed

Monday, September 09, 2019

Greater London Authority: Declan's complaint against the Mayor of London's Rough Sleeping Team at City Hall is reworked by the Authority and dismissed

Our Church and State website has no less than 57 Nobel Laureates on it; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms formulates what is the core of free speech. "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression." In an important interpretation of this article, the European Court of Human Rights in Handyside v. UK (1976) indicated that this "freedom of expression" should be construed as follows. It "is applicable not only to 'information' or 'ideas' that are favourably received, or regarded as inoffensive, or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population". Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no "democratic society" (see Cliteur, 2010).

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

Declan and I are housed in a flat that is part of the Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative. Alongside our tenancy is access to the Mayor's Tenancy Sustainment Team at St Mungo's. It has been acknowledged by the Greater London Authority (GLA) in court papers that we can live independently – we do not have addictions or mental illness or behavioural issues. Our needs are solely related to the harassment, discrimination, intimidation and victimisation we routinely face; see my post of 8 April, Threat to Life: Declan writes to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan about the blockade across London on his volunteer applications notwithstanding his support from the Mayor-commissioned St Mungo's (WITH UPDATE 19/6/2019). The post contains Declan's email to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. Declan received a reply on behalf of the Mayor from David, who described himself as "part of the Rough Sleeping Team at City Hall with responsibilities for the Mayor's rough sleeping services". This David basically ignored everything Declan had to say about the blockade across London on his volunteer applications and without authority or consent attempted to involve our landlord, Peabody Trust housing association, in what has become an ongoing serious legal dispute with St Mungo's; see my updated post of 21 August, St Mungo's: Pleadings for filing with the Central London County Court. No response from this Mayor of London-commissioned charity's Chief Executive to Declan's letter before action on Monday of last week (WITH UPDATE 9/9/2019). Declan's stage 1 complaint to the GLA almost three months ago was reworked by the Authority into a data complaint and effectively dismissed this evening.

Housing and Land
Greater London Authority

Address removed for email

19 June 2019

Dear Housing and Land,

Please treat this email as my stage 1 complaint to the GLA.

Last month David (surname not provided below) of the Rough Sleeping Team at City Hall asked St Mungo's to contact me with a view to liaising with my landlord, Peabody. This could have, and in fact may have, created problems for both me and my wife. I was engaged in a serious legal dispute with St Mungo's at the time.

David breached my rights by contacting St Mungo's like this without my authority or consent.

I request that you uphold my complaint. I further seek assurance that the GLA will make no further contact with St Mungo's on my behalf without my consent.

Yours faithfully,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring

Nowhere in any correspondence with the GLA has Declan expressed his concern that the GLA had transferred correspondence to St Mungo's without his prior consent and that this was in breach of his rights.

9 September 2019

Dear Mr Heavey,

I write in response to your recent correspondence with various colleagues in the GLA Housing & Land Directorate and the GLA Monitoring Officer in relation to your concerns about how we handled an earlier piece of your correspondence. In particular, you expressed your concern that the GLA had transferred this correspondence to St Mungo's without your prior consent and that this was in breach of your rights.

These concerns have been passed to me to address in my capacity as the GLA's Data Protection Officer. Please accept my apologies for delay in replying.

As you may already be aware, the GLA and St Mungo's have an established relationship under UK Data Protection Legislation - the Data Protection Act 2018 and EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - in relation to services such as Clearing House, CHAIN and the Tenancy Sustainment Team North.

In relation to the processing of personal data under data protection legislation for these purposes, the GLA is a data controller - the party who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are processed. In this regard, St Mungo's are engaged as a data processor, who process personal data in accordance with our instructions.

As my colleague explained in his email to you of 19 June, the GLA commissions St Mungo's to provide the TST North service to provide support to people in Clearing House properties; this is a process which is reflected by the nature of our data processing arrangements with St Mungo's, whereby they process data on behalf of the GLA in relation to the delivery of these services.

You correspondence was shared with St Mungo's in accordance with these arrangements and I am satisfied that the GLA has not acted in a manner contrary to these arrangements or otherwise in a way that would constitute a breach of the data protection legislation.

As you may be aware, you are also entitled to raise a concern with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the supervisory body authorised by the Data Protection Act 2018 to regulate the handling of personal data within the United Kingdom. The contact details for the ICO are:

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

If you have any further questions, please contact me via data.protection@london.gov.uk or mayor@london.gov.uk

Regards,

Ian Lister
Information Governance Manager & Data Protection Officer
Greater London Authority

Last year St Mungo's made the international press for all the wrong reasons. They are accused of helping to get rough sleepers arrested and deported. When the story came through my Russia Today (RT) news feed, it left Declan gob smacked. He subsequently spoke with Diane Taylor, the journalist covering the story for the Guardian.

EU freedom for rough sleepers infringed - shock horror. https://t.co/RuJKrSEiTm
— Andrew Martin (@devonprof) May 14, 2018

From My Picks

12 July: Threat to life: Updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's highlighted

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

http://churchandstate.org.uk/about/

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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Monday, September 09, 2019

Greater London Authority: Declan's complaint against the Mayor of London's Rough Sleeping Team at City Hall is reworked by the Authority and dismissed

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