Freedom of Information requests can be made to any public body in Wales, and a huge amount of information can be obtained. For my Houndmistress website, the information compiled is mainly generated by a combination of viewing Council websites and by FOI requests. FOI requests are governed by a number of legal requirements set down by the Government, in particular requests must be answered within twenty working days.

I’ve done several batches of requests to all 22 Welsh Councils for statistics on stray dogs, policy on stray dog payments and revenue budgets. All of these requests have been clearly and politely made, and where possible I’ve directed them straight to the FOI Officer (where this information is clearly given on a Council’s website). All requests are made by email and specifically request information to be provided in the same way (though I provide my home address and telephone number).

Council financial years work from April to March, so by waiting until July, there should be no year end problems with figures not being compiled. As with previous FOI requests, responses have varied considerably and it is this that I wanted to highlight. For previous requests, I’ve sometimes had to wait months for basic data, and it’s not uncommon to have to escalate complaints to Chief Officer or Chief Executive level before information is provided.

There is an argument for saying that much of this information should be provided anyway on Council websites and in England, the Westminster government is encouraging Councils to be far more transparent with the publishing of financial and other information. Sadly there’s no indication of this approach to openness and transparency in Wales. With web publishing being such a relatively low cost option these days, I’m struggling to see what the problem is. I certainly wouldn’t advocate any requirement for paper based documentation.

My most recent request was to all Welsh Councils, and was made on 13^th July 2011, which means that the deadline for information to be returned is 10^th August 2011.

The text sent to all Councils is this:-

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to make a request for the following information under the FOI scheme.

For the financial year 2010/11, please supply :-

· The total number of stray dogs dealt with (preferably broken down by month, if possible)

Of these, please enumerate which are : Returned directly to owner, of those kennelled, those collected by the owner, those rehomed, those put down, and any other destinations.

Please enumerate any puppies born in kennels.

· What is the total revenue budget for the stray dog service for the financial year 2010/11 and for 2011/12? Has the service had to undergo any service restrictions in light of the current financial climate?

· Are stray dog kennelling services provided in house or by a contractor?

· If services are in house, has any market testing been done in the past three years or are there plans to undertake any?

· If services are provided by a contractor, when are they due for renewal?

Thank you for this information. I’d be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt of this email. Please reply by email and do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further clarification.

If some information can be provided quickly, I am happy to receive it in advance of the full response.

Mrs. K Woodhouse

The only thing I’ve removed from the above is my address at the top and the date.

I’ve put together a table which shows the responses I’ve had so far.

Name of Council	Acknowledgement received	Information received within 20 day deadline	Information all provided and correct
Anglesey	Yes	Yes	No, minor clarifications received very promptly on 19.7.11.
Blaenau Gwent	Yes	Yes	No – previous year’s figures initially sent.
Bridgend	Yes	Yes	Yes – on 9.8.11.
Caerphilly	Yes	Yes	Yes, in paper form, though asked for electronic delivery.
Cardiff	No	No	Partial answer received on 23rd August, still waiting on remainder of information.
Carmarthenshire	Yes	Yes	Yes – on 10.8.11.
Ceredigion	Yes	Yes	Yes – on 26.7.11.
Conwy	Yes	Yes	Yes – on 29.7.11.
Denbighshire	Yes	Yes	Yes – on 27.7.11.
Flintshire	Yes	Yes	Partial answer sent on 25.7.11. Clarification sent on 26.7.11.
Gwynedd	Yes.	Yes.	No - still waiting on 29.8.11.
Merthyr Tydfil	Yes	Yes	No – 2008/9 figures provided. Had to be chased to provide correction.
Monmouthshire	Yes	Yes	Sent in two tranches on 22nd and 24th August.
Neath Port Talbot	Yes	Yes	Initial information sent on 15.7.11 – completed information received on 23.7.11. after queries
Newport	Yes	Yes	Yes – on 10.8.11.
Pembrokeshire	Yes	Yes	Partial info received on 10.8.11. Clarification received on 11.8.11.
Powys	Yes	Yes	Yes – on 4.8.11.
Rhondda Cynon Taff	Yes	Yes	Partial info received on 4.8.11, and clarification received on 15.8.11.
Swansea	Yes	Yes	Yes on 27.7.11. with a minor clarification received on 11.8.11.
Torfaen	Yes	Yes	Yes, on 26.7.11.
Vale of Glamorgan	Yes	Yes	Yes, on 10.8.11.
Wrexham	Yes	Yes	Partial info sent on 29.7.11. and fully corrected info on 1.8.11.

Only ten Councils were able to provide the information requested in the correct form within the deadline – that’s 45.45%. Is it just me or is that a shocking indictment of the sloppy way Welsh local government manages its correspondence, and the low regard it has for its customers?

A further ten sent information within the deadline, but answers were incomplete or just plain wrong. For example, both Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil sent figures for previous years rather than the one requested. If I hadn’t already had the previous figures to compare with, and had carefully checked each answer as it arrived, I would never have known these figures were wrong. Merthyr didn’t even apologise when they sent out the corrected figures, and had to be chased to provide them.

I am also utterly baffled by Caerphilly’s determination to send out paper based communication when I had specifically requested an email response. More worryingly, a letter will incur printing and postage costs that an email will not.

Most worrying of all, is that at the time of writing, I am still waiting for a partial answer from Cardiff Council and haven’t received ANY information from Gwynedd. Gwynedd explained the delay when it was queried by saying that their officers have been on holiday for the past two months. I swear I am not making this up – I really couldn’t be that brazen to fulfil every cliché about the slowness of Councils. I escalated my Gwynedd complaint to the Chief Executive of the Council last week. You probably won’t be surprised to know that Harry Thomas was away on holiday, so his charming PA valiantly sent me a very polite apology and told me that the Head of Environmental Health would be looking into the matter. I’m still waiting for this mythical beast to contact me – presumably he also is enjoying a lengthy summer break.

And let’s not forget what we’re dealing with here – nothing complex, no lengthy trawls through historical archives. Just simple figures on the dogs dealt with last year, and how much money they spend while doing it. These should be used by every service manager on a regular basis, assessing trends, monitoring hotspots, driving efficiencies. The fact that these figures are so difficult to come by suggests that they are not being used by service managers.

And in the bigger picture, Wales is poised later this year to produce legislation on breeding dogs which will almost certainly push microchipping as part of the planned programme. Issues around stray dogs and their management are timely, and Councils themselves should be looking at these figures to assess the impact of legislative changes. That’s exactly why I’m chasing the numbers, so I can run some assessments and forecasts on an all Wales basis. You might even reasonably expect that Welsh local Councils would share this level of data with each other –again, looking at legislative impacts and being prepared. That’s a reasonable expectation but unfortunately it’s wrong. No such sharing is taking place, and not even WG are looking at this detail in the data.

One of the things I often buy when at Busy Bees are items from Moda's wonderful range of pre-cuts. Most quilters are familiar with jelly rolls and charm packs and Moda have developed a range of complementary items, all with lovely cake based names - fab! One purchase a while back that had been tucked in the cupboard was a Honey Buns Christmas pack. This is a pair of rolls of 1.5" strips of fabric, quite small and ideal for a fun project. In the pack was a recipe for some Seminole pieced Christmas stockings with attractive ruffle tops and so I decided to give these a go. The instructions were easy to follow and clear, and I'm now the proud owner of six dinky little miniature stockings, ready for Christmas. This was the first time I'd done any Seminole work, and it's great.

My thinking is that these would be ideal either as decorative items, say hung on a door knob, or ideal for jazzing up a smaller present, by making the stocking part of the gift, if you see what I mean. They'd be perfect filled with something like a soap, some hand cream and a few chocolates for instance. Now that I'm working at the library, it's likely we'll exchange token gifts with a few colleagues, so they'll be perfect for that. It's also good to get ahead on a few Christmas things - September is nearly upon us and I know how fast the end of the year seems to fly by. Making them was a lot of fun. Now all I need to do is to ensure I don't put them somewhere so safe I forget about them!

The only downside - lint. I'm wearing a navy long sleeved cotton top and a chambray tiered knee length skirt - both are now covered with maddening little pieces of fabric "crumb". Oh well, it makes a change from dog hair.

Tuesday was Boola's big night - his Gold test. I was very nervous about it as although he is brilliant at some of the exercises, he is a bit more hit and miss with others. We all gathered before our class, and there were some pretty tense faces, even from those who'd done Gold before with their other dogs. The examiner arrived and then it was time.

We started with our road work exercise, before it got dark and that went very well. This is one of Boola's strong points as he walks so well on the lead. Then we were back inside the church hall for the remainder of the test. We slowly worked through going to the bed (Boola had to have two goes at this). This exercise is paradoxically the hardest for Boola because as a typical greyhound his bed is his default position! In all the time we've owned him, we've never needed to tell him to go and lie down as he usually just takes himself off to the nearest comfy sofa, duvet or rug. So having to get him up, walk round the church hall and then tell him to go back where he just came from is obviously in Boola's eyes, a completely baffling exercise. Anyway, he did it.

Then it was doing a timed Stay with an out of sight bit too (I had to go and stand in the vestibule, leaving Boola settled). As expected, this is another of his strong points - once he's on his mat, and lying down, he's usually pretty settled. Then the examiner came round and did the physical examination - by this time, Boola had actually fallen asleep, so we had to gently wake him for the examiner to do her inspection of teeth, eyes, ears, coat etc. Then it was time for questions to handlers on dog care and welfare. After that, we did off lead walking and the emergency stop. Boola's emergency stop is not as crisp as some of the others - but it was sufficient to pass which was a huge relief as this is also one of his less good exercises. We had to a small test with some food to demonstrate food manners - fortunately, Boola's are pretty good so that was fine. Then we had to do Controlled Isolation - Boola flew through this as again it just required him to stretch out on his rug and have a nap! By this time, we had completed the test exercises, and Caroline came round with our certificates and rosettes. I was so proud of him - he is the only greyhound in Caroline's classes to have done his Gold, and he really is a wonderful ambassador for ex racing dogs. Given his age, his achievement is even more special.

I wanted to give Caroline a small gift to say Thank you - I also made her a card. I have a bag in the spare bedroom which is my "present" bag where I stash gifts that I buy during the year so out of that came a lovely L'Occitane Pivoine toiletry set, plus I popped in a tissue holder that I'd made. To complete it, I made a little drawstring bag. Picture attached. The fabric is from the Martinique range by Moda. A while back, I bought a lovely little box of precut 2.5" squares in a selection of designs by Moda - a sampler collection. For each fabric collection there are 40 squares so this was perfect to make up a small drawstring bag - with 5 rows of 4 squares on each outer side. I lined the bag with some striped blue and cream cotton, and used a Martinique strip to make a channel for the drawstring. After pressing and adding the drawstring, it was ready to go. Caroline really liked it, which I was very pleased about.

It turned out that sadly, that evening Caroline had been to the vet with one of her three dogs, Bella, a beautiful mastiff, and had received the terrible news that she would have to be put to sleep. Caroline's ability to keep going and run the class after hearing this awful news was a tribute to her professionalism. Bella was actually put to sleep yesterday afternoon - RIP to a beautiful dog. We actually heard the news when we were at the hydrotherapist with Booty - Angela the therapist was another of the gold classmates with her Staffy cross, Charlie and she had her rosette and certificate proudly displayed when we arrived. She had the text from Caroline with the news while Booty was putting on her harness for her dip.

Booty is continuing to enjoy the therapy - she rushes in with a waggy tail, gets lots of fusses and treats, and then trots quite happily up the ramp into the tank. Afterwards, not surprisingly, she usually has her tea then spends the evening fast asleep.

I've written before about my cousin Jonathan and his lovely blog - link in the sidebar. Technically of course he's my dad's cousin (Jonathan's father is my grandmothers' brother) but because he's closer in age to me than to my dad I just tend to think of him as being my cousin. Jonathan, like myself is a cancer survivor, indeed his blog started during his cancer treatment and he recently passed his five year mark - something that all cancer patients recognise as a huge milestone. If you've never read his blog, then I can highly recommend it. Jonathan's parents, uncle Bill and aunty Janet, used to live in Three Crosses when I was growing up in Dunvant (next village along) so we saw quite a bit of them and Janet and my mum played badminton together for many years in the village hall in Dunvant.

Ten years ago, aunty Janet had cancer just as her daughter Sally passed away - a horrendous time. I'm very sorry to write that the cancer appears to be back - more scans are happening shortly but the oncologist sounds pretty certain. It's just another wallop that this year has brought - I can't believe the awful toll of illnesses and death there's been. In some ways, having had cancer before is both a curse and a blessing - you know more about what's happening and I know Jonathan will be immensely supportive too, but that knowledge is not a comfortable gift. Our thoughts and prayers are with her, and there will be detailed updates on Jonathan's blog, but I'll keep posting as I know more.

I often write about Caroline, who does Boola's dog training classes and I've got to know as a friend. I am full of admiration of the excellent work she does as a dog warden and in her own business as a dog behaviourist and trainer. Here's an article about her that appeared in our local paper this week. Link below.

Caroline’s puppy love offers new career as Wales' dog whisperer - Real Life - Lifestyle from @walesonline

Unusually for me and for this blog, I've got a lot to write about today, and some of it is political. I think I'll do seperate posts for the different items. First up, some news about Plymouth City Council, where I worked for around 12 years. The Council, like most of local government is highly unionised, part of the reason why local government workers generally enjoy such good terms and conditions. Anyway, when I worked there, I was an active shop steward, and for a while was on the Branch Executive. It was interesting work, but as any union rep will tell you, it's pretty thankless. Most union members are completely apathetic until they need a steward, then suddenly you're expected to drop everything for them. Anyway, partly as a legacy from my father, and partly because I cannot stand bullying in any shape or form, I'm very glad I did act as a steward - this is very much the sort of glue that holds together our society, along with all sorts of voluntary work and mutual aid. It was also (surprisingly) an excellent primer for becoming a manager, in that in so many ways it provided lessons in what NOT to do, as much as what works. Like all Councils, Plymouth recognised not just Unison, but the GMB and Unite (in its previous forms), and practiced a form of collective bargaining. Unions were given accommodation, recognised time off for union work and the usual facilities. This generally worked well, and by and large I'd say industrial relations in Plymouth were pretty good.

Fast forward a few years, and like all Councils Plymouth is grappling with the implementation of Single Status. This is attempting to eliminate the old professional and clerical/manual divide with big differences in terms and conditions, including working hours, overtime arrangements and so on. One of the drivers for this is the inherent sex bias in much of the old arrangements, (in which unions were highly complicit, it has to be said) which led to institutionalised pay gaps between jobs that had overwhelmingly male or female staff. Plymouth has been steadily inching towards a revised package of terms and conditions but recently negotiations have stalled. Now here's the thing that has really rendered me hopping mad - Plymouth Council have thrown out Unison from the negotiations and closed their offices, rendering them homeless. Rightly, Unite and GMB have now withdrawn their agreement from what was an almost completed package. This has left the negotiations in complete chaos.

Eventually, I have no doubt that the Council can and will drive through a package of measures, and yes, I understand completely the really tight situation facing local government finance. And yes, there are plenty of arcane and bonkers practices that need to be driven out - in Cardiff, I sometimes felt I'd been teleported back to the 1970s with some of the bizarre things unions fought to defend. But none of this takes away from the basic point about the employer shredding the goodwill and trust of its employees, and its union reps, many of whom are highly effective, hardworking and do a thankless job with many hours of voluntary commitment. Equally, employees of the Council (and particularly female and low paid ones) are now further away than ever from having fairness and parity at work. I'm sure that many trade unionists will be taking action to support Plymouth's unions, and I hope that if any of my readers are trade unionists they will immediately press their branches and national bodies to put pressure on both sides to resume negotiations. See here for the BBC report and links to relevant websites.

A really busy weekend as Thomas and James came to stay (eldest and middle nephew). They arrived on the train on Friday lunchtime and we collected them from Cardiff station. In the afternoon, Andrew took them swimming down at the new leisure pool at the International Sports Village. The complex has a large competition pool and a separate leisure pool area with lots of slides, water spouts and other similar features to appeal to small boys. And it did, they had a great time. I made a vegetable pizza, which we had with some garlic bread and salad, followed by ice cream, then a movie then bed for the boys.

Saturday we took the dogs for a walk in the morning, came home for a brief lunch then went out to Caerleon Roman Fort. Caerleon is just the other side of Newport, a pretty little town which is also the site of Isca, a Roman fort and settlement which has been extensively excavated and partially preserved. We started our visit in the amphitheatre which when built housed around 6000 spectators. The boys loved running around, jumping off various bits, exploring the arena and chasing each other over the steep banks. We took some pics (attached). Then we headed over to the small but excellent (and free!) museum nearby which told the story of the Roman invasion of Britain, the local Roman presence and gave a great deal of information about the running of the fort and daily life, all supported by a fascinating range of artefacts found on hte site, including gravestones, statues, pottery, jewellery, weapons, a coin hoard, glass and so on. At the back of the museum was a play area with lots of Roman games for kids, then out in the garden there was a planted area with plants that would have been used by Roman cooks and doctors. Roman re-enactors were dressed up and encouraging children to have a go with a sword and shield or they could make woven willow bracelets.

Then we strolled back via the Roman barracks, another large complex but less remaining above ground than the amphitheatre. The boys enjoyed it, although of course being brought up in Bath they are no stranger to Roman features. Returning home, the boys disappeared upstairs onto the computer. Andrew cooked a turkey and leek pie with some home made cheesecake, then we watched a Star Wars film, then it was time for bed.

Sunday was another busy day, again with a dog walk in the morning, then we headed off to the Hope Rescue Dog Show, over at Newport. This was held at Coronation Park, just behind the unique Transporter Bridge (see website here). Thomas and James love engineering and railway visits so were fascinated by the bridge, and we've promised them that on a future visit they can make a crossing on it.

Hope Rescue are a local all breed rescue who take a lot of the pound dogs from the Newport Council dog pound, so I was delighted to go along to support them in this work. There were the usual array of classes, Best Rescue, Best Veteran etc. so we entered Boola and James into a selection. Boola got a 4th place in the Most Handsome Male Class! James was impressed by the fine rosette he was awarded and the goody bag from the judge which included a spare dog lead, and a sample pack of kibble. A pic attached.

After the show finished, we came home for a welcome meal of beef casserole that had been cooking in the slow cooker since the morning, so was meltingly tender and lovely, with sage dumplings and mash. Boys decided to watch another film, so watched Hellboy, which they really enjoyed, then it was time for bed.

Today, it was going home day, but first a busy morning. Andrew went to the hospital for a check up at the Fracture clinic at 8, and was delighted to find that his collar bone has now officially healed - X rays reveal the bone is regrowing, and it's nice and straight. So no more visits there. Then back home and he took the boys down to Cardiff Bay for an enjoyable hour's boat trip on a powerboat, right out as far as Flatholm in the middle of the Severn estuary. They loved it, and had a great time. Pic attached of them in their life jackets before setting off. While they were gone, I got busy doing some cleaning, then did the prep for a BBQ, including lighting the coals nice and early so that they were properly ready by the time we cooked. I marinaded some sausages, and we had a selection of salads including a coleslaw with a maple buttermilk dressing. Andrew had also made a giant raspberry trifle. The boys came back, damp and happy from their trip, then Claire (Andrew's sister) and youngest son Alex arrived. We also cooked some Glamorgan sausages and mushroom burgers (Claire is a veggy), grilled sausages and burgers, and then all tucked in. It was lovely to eat out in the garden, surrounded by lots of flowers, enjoying the warmth and the sunshine, listening to the birds. We put the dogs in the house as Andy kept trying to pinch the boys' food.

After a leisurely lunch, trifle and coffee it was eventually time to say goodbye and the boys left around 4. Suddenly the house seemed very quiet! I think they had a good time and the weekend just seemed to fly by. We've had a quiet evening - watched a taped episode of Torchwood. I am not enjoying the new series as much as previous ones. Andrew is going to the physiotherapist in the morning, hopefully she will be as positive as the Fracture Clinic.