Almost all the images in this blog post had to be transferred to an alternative host website for rectification. I then discovered that these amplified images in MediaFire could be rectified by adding the proper width and height to the code. It seems that images in this Church and State blog that are held in MediaFire may have been restored by the company to their true size. We had before MediaFire images deleted and exchanged but never amplified.
DAY 363 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A ‘NO FAULT’ SECTION 21 NOTICE
MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
14/04/20
With the background as provided above, the Heaveys now are facing an eviction notice from their landlord, Peabody Trust housing association. The tenancy is a flat, which falls under the Mayor of London’s Rough Sleepers Initiative. Pardoning my intrusion into English law, but in fairness there does not appear to be any reason for the eviction, relying apparently entirely on the discretion of the landlord.
Joseph R. Carvalko, Esq., American lawyer (full letter here)
Our Church and State website has no less than 63 Nobel Laureates on it despite the never-ending assault on our email; see paragraph 2 under “Church and State” on this blog’s sidebar (updated today).
Declan and I are living in a Mayor of London’s Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) designated property. We expect that any time soon we will have lost our almost two-year battle to stabilise our tenancy. What started off bad has gotten a lot worse. We have been offered an appalling new tenancy by our landlord Peabody Trust and our support provider St Mungo’s has and (to the best of our knowledge) continues to process behind our backs outrageous support plans. Although Peabody is our landlord, we are tenants of the Clearing House, which is part of St Mungo’s on behalf of the Greater London Authority (the properties are provided by housing associations such as Peabody). Four months into our tenancy, when a Housing First pilot ended, our support was transferred from the Single Homeless Project to the Tenancy Sustainment Team (TST) at St Mungo’s. The Greater London Authority explained: “In other words, at the end of the Housing First pilot, the tenants would revert to being Clearing House tenants and as such would fall to be referred to the TST like all other Clearing House tenants.”
When it comes to TST support plans, Andrew McCarthy, Head of Quality and Information Security at St Mungo’s, finally erased in September 2020 slanderous and defamatory information about Declan. However, he has not erased at least two series of support plans that stand in flagrant breach of our support agreement (stating, inter alia, that there “will be no support plan”), that we never knew existed, that are riddled with inaccuracies and outright falsehoods, and that add to the destabilisation of our tenancy. He reveals the coercive nature of Action Plans (one of four types of support plans): “The most meaningful Action Plans are always those produced in partnership between client and support worker. Action Plans without participation from a client should only be created as a very last resort.” This runs contrary to St Mungo’s non-coercive statement to the court in 2016:
For the avoidance of doubt, as alleged by Mr Heavey, we do not admit that our Tenancy Support Team (“TST”) model is “coercive”. We try to provide support to individuals in a way that best suits their needs and wishes. When St Mungo’s took over responsibility for providing support for Mr Heavey, we respected his wish to set out parameters for how we would work with him in a “support agreement”.
Elizabeth Denham, CBE is the UK Information Commissioner. On 16 April we received the Commissioner’s review on Declan’s complaint. The Commissioner’s decision means that St Mungo’s will continue to process support plans for both of us individually without our knowledge or consent because St Mungo’s identified (substantial) public interest as the lawful basis for the processing. However, the public interest defence does not apply with excessive data, and we therefore continue to seek the honouring of our support agreement to ensure that excessive processing of our personal data is not conducted (data minimisation). The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman confirmed last month that the caseworker required a second referral from Lyn Brown MP (Lab) that took into account the Commissioner’s review. So on 19 April Declan once again copied St Mungo’s CEO Steve Douglas, CBE into the complaint in the first block below that corrects the statement above from St Mungo’s to the court in 2016 and explains the direct threat the Commissioner’s decision poses to his life. Ms Brown’s office confirmed yesterday that she has referred the complaint to the Ombudsman a second time. Since Andrew McCarthy’s patently coercive statement in an email last September, St Mungo’s have from the top down chosen to ignore all subsequent correspondence from Declan about this complaint. At least we will have this fact for a free legal aid solicitor in any eviction action against us.
On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 at 12:08, Declan Heavey wrote:
For the attention of St Mungo’s CEO Steve Douglas, CBE
Rt Hon Lyn Brown MP
Member of Parliament for West Ham
Address removed for email
19 April 2021
Dear Ms Brown,
Second referral to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Please find attached as requested my completed complaint form for your second referral to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. I am copying into this email St Mungo’s CEO Steve Douglas, CBE. Thank you again for your assistance in this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan
This is Declan’s complaint about the Information Commissioner’s Office for Lyn Brown MP’s second referral to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. The Information Commissioner’s review (the first PDF below) upholds the outcome and explanations provided in the Commissioner’s report (the second PDF below).
The details of your complaint
I am living in a Mayor of London’s Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) designated property. I am a tenant of the Clearing House, which is part of St Mungo Community Housing Association (St Mungo’s) on behalf of the Greater London Authority (GLA). Four months into my tenancy, when a Housing First pilot ended, my support was transferred from the Single Homeless Project to the Tenancy Sustainment Team (TST) at St Mungo’s. My complaint is about the Information Commissioner’s report (upheld upon review) that allows for how St Mungo’s TST is processing my personal data. St Mungo’s refuse to erase support plans that stand in breach of my support agreement (stating, inter alia, that there “will be no support plan”), that I never knew existed, that are riddled with inaccuracies and outright falsehoods, and that add to the destabilisation of my tenancy.
In court papers in 2016, St Mungo’s expressly validated my support agreement that deems support plans inappropriate and unnecessary taking into account my needs and wishes:
For the avoidance of doubt, as alleged by Mr Heavey, we do not admit that our Tenancy Support Team (“TST”) model is “coercive”. We try to provide support to individuals in a way that best suits their needs and wishes. When St Mungo’s took over responsibility for providing support for Mr Heavey, we respected his wish to set out parameters for how we would work with him in a “support agreement”.
My support agreement was the result of an almost two-year legal battle with the GLA, which culminated in District Court Judge Silverman calling for round table talks for non-coercive support for me (the Housing First project offered support which was voluntary), contrary to the above statement. Andrew McCarthy, Head of Quality and Information Security at St Mungo’s, has revealed the coercive nature of Action Plans (one of four types of support plans): “The most meaningful Action Plans are always those produced in partnership between client and support worker. Action Plans without participation from a client should only be created as a very last resort.” St Mungo’s TST even go so far as to allege in at least two Support Overviews (another type of support plan) that I am not working, which they know to be false.
It is the Information Commissioner’s decision that St Mungo’s TST can continue to process these support plans without my participation because I have been provided by St Mungo’s with a Privacy Notice that explains that they collect personal information under the legal basis of (substantial) public interest. This does not provide a justification for support plans that are inappropriate and unnecessary, which would explain why I have a support agreement that states that there will be no support plan. Under data protection law, St Mungo’s can only rely on public interest as a legal basis for processing personal information if the processing is necessary. If St Mungo’s can reasonably perform their tasks in a less intrusive way (such as through the continued use of action notes in this instance), the public interest defence cannot be adduced, and certainly not for support plans deemed inappropriate and unnecessary with my support agreement.
St Mungo’s eventually removed slanderous and defamatory information from one of these support plans. However, I cannot reasonably be expected to continually spend excessive amounts of my time dealing with false narratives, based on misleading and harmful misinformation, apparently used to coerce my participation in support plans that have been deemed inappropriate and unnecessary (my support agreement also clarifies that my “engagement with St Mungo’s TST is completely voluntary”). I have therefore repeatedly requested the reclosure of four support related categories in accordance with my support agreement to ensure that excessive processing of my personal data is not conducted (data minimisation). I have also repeatedly communicated to St Mungo’s that this processing is causing me substantial damage and distress, whereas precisely the opposite impression is given in the Commissioner’s report.
How have you been affected by what has happened?
As it stands, the Commissioner’s decision on my complaint that permits St Mungo’s to continue processing inappropriate and unnecessary support plans without my participation causes me substantial damage and distress. First, the decision renders my ongoing battle to stabilise my tenancy unwinnable, thereby inhibiting my ability to exercise my rights and resulting in inevitable financial loss (substantial damage), as I no longer have pro se access to the courts. Although my engagement with St Mungo’s TST is completely voluntary, I have recently been to court to get them to even take a phone call to confirm that I am a client of theirs. This phone call was only agreed within a week of the court ruling that there was no obligation upon St Mungo’s to take such a phone call and levying costs against me in the sum of £1,850. This time I 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 me. Second, the Commissioner’s decision on my complaint poses a direct threat to my life (substantial distress). It is not unreasonable to think that the false narratives I have seen could have been and, once re-established, may yet be used for eviction. I am a 60-year-old asthmatic with a long history of serious respiratory illness, thus placing me in the high-risk group for COVID-19 and other viral respiratory infections. Eviction from an RSI property would leave me wholly vulnerable and with no prospect of being housed with such data being held against me.
What are you hoping we can achieve?
Given the substantial damage and distress caused to me, I respectfully request that the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman upholds my complaint that St Mungo’s could reasonably perform their tasks in a less intrusive way (such as through the continued use of action notes), and that the public interest defence cannot be adduced for support plans deemed inappropriate and unnecessary with my support agreement. This then would result in the reclosure of four support related categories that had been closed for four years and ensure that, in accordance with my support agreement, excessive processing of my personal data is not conducted (data minimisation).
ICO review:
ICO report:
Declan should have received an auto-reply from Newham Council to his email below to Newham Benefits Service on 6 April about our Housing Benefit, but he didn’t. That email was only acknowledged by auto-reply after he resent the email during a follow-up phone call a couple of days later. Despite an additional email, two recorded letters and three phone calls, we’re still waiting for an up-to-date notification decision letter on Declan’s claim that shows the figures he declared following a salary increase last February. Most of our rent continues to be paid by Housing Benefit but based on an erroneous notification decision letter dated 8 March 2021 (received on 26 March) that for over two months has left us vulnerable to, if not prosecution, the suspension or termination of these rent payments. Declan has already had his claim for Housing Benefit twice suspended by the Council because of erroneous notifications from the Department for Work and Pensions that we had vacated. We have had no dealings with the DWP during this tenancy, having come off the streets as two part-time employees of Network for Church Monitoring for some time.
On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 at 16:30, Declan Heavey
For the attention of Chris Boylett, Head of Newham Benefits Service
6 April 2021
Dear Ms Daranijo,
Please find attached the payslips you have requested. There have been no changes affecting my and my wife’s tenancy agreement with the landlord. Our tenancy continues on a periodic basis with no changes in our rent or service charges in our rent.
On 11 February 2021, I told Newham Benefits Service in writing about changes I thought might affect my Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction; namely, my and my wife’s income changing. On 26 March 2021, I wrote to Head of Service Chris Boylett requesting a notification decision letter that takes these income changes into account. I had just received a notification decision letter that calculated my Housing Benefit allowance based on the financial details I provided last year.
Please can you acknowledge receipt of this email so that I know that an up-to-date notification decision letter is coming?
Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Headquarters in Gogarburn. The RBS owns National Westminster Bank (NatWest).
Declan dealt with the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) about the RBS’s NatWest for over a year following the non-payment of his salary by standing order. The Financial Ombudsman effectively found in a final decision in this case that the Executive Case Manager at RBS wouldn’t have been reasonably aware when she paid Declan compensation on 17 February 2020 – in recognition of issues he had experienced in setting up two replacement standing orders on the Network for Church Monitoring account – that there had been some error previously made by NatWest in setting up the replacement standing order for the payment of his salary. Declan’s complaint about the subsequent cancellation of the standing order without his knowledge or consent that resulted in the non-payment of his salary on 24 February 2020 was passed by the investigator to an ombudsman, who is the former Team Manager at FOS and has held roles at Alliance and Leicester (now Santander). Below is a link to Declan’s response to the ombudsman’s published decision not to uphold his complaint.
FOS investigator: “NatWest have said although the cancellation was processed on the 12th February 2020, it wasn’t uploaded for processing until later – so it didn’t actually cancel until the 19 February 2020.”
The above complaint concerning the non-payment by standing order of Declan’s salary was only the first of three complaints about NatWest that he submitted to the FOS last year for resolution. The first of the other two complaints involved the wayward transfer in branch of £1,850 to St Mungo’s by court order, after the cashier manually changed Declan’s surname from Heavey to Henry. This was another complaint not upheld by the FOS, notwithstanding that Declan received £30 compensation with a final decision letter before the error was resolved with St Mungo’s.
The FOS’s third investigation is ongoing and relates to the second time, on 7 October 2020, we discovered that NatWest had made an error with the spelling of Declan’s surname (Haeavey). I made the discovery when I attempted to make a payment to him online:
The Central London County Court is based at the Royal Courts of Justice.
The following is the full content of paragraphs 3 and 4 under “Church and State” on this blog’s sidebar that have been updated today.
3. This is Day 363 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 [link to this blog post] of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo’s to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that poses a direct threat to his life.
St Mungos management were repeatedly warned by their staff via Unite that their actions weere unethical, damaged the work of front line staff and were likley to be unlawful. The same senior managers remain in place https://t.co/ZSXwq3Xd81 #homelessness #ukhousing @labhomeless_cam
— UniteHousingWorkers (@UniteHousing) November 5, 2019
I am truly appalled by the unlawful violation of the Heavey’s basic right to send and receive email without interference. I would be most grateful for anything you may be able to do by way of taking measures to correct this gross abuse.
An American professor to then Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone in 2010
The group targeted above was US National Medal of Technology and Innovation laureates. These national medals are presented by the President of the United States on behalf of the American people, and are among the highest honours in the nation for professional achievement.
At the end of February, for the first time in weeks, we were able to get an email directly to a close colleague in Washington, DC. But emails from us to this colleague continue to be blocked on an on-off basis and by far more off than on since February. Among Declan’s blocked emails in February was his reply to the 19th Nobel Prize laureate to accept his invitation to be listed as one of our Honorary Associates. Declan writes that: “[W]e are engaged in a life and death struggle for survival (my wife’s blog post about this is here).” The link is to my regularly updated post (currently the previous post) about the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s refusal to accept a referral of discrimination from Lyn Brown MP. We continue to battle through the never-ending assault on our email, which is worse this year than it has ever been. We had never gone weeks on end without being able to communicate directly with one person by email, which has already happened twice this year.
Beware the use of "free" photos off the internet – they may not be as free as you think, thanks to automated image recognition tools and dubious use of Creative Commons licensing- as targets of one German photographer found out to their cost: https://t.co/64ryecBz1v
— ComputerWeekly (@ComputerWeekly) November 18, 2020
Laptop interference: For 15 weeks it’s been cuts to the targeted laptop from the internet and speeds lower than 1 Mbps. Last week Declan’s primary laptop was functioning at 1 Mbps (5 Mbps today) and we both continue to be cut off the internet on individual laptops
The targeting of one or more of our four operational laptops kicked off again in December 2020. It’s either cut the targeted laptop(s) from the internet or slow down speeds to anything from 74 Mbps to less than 1 Mbps.[1] For four weeks it was an average 5 Mbps on Declan’s primary laptop until 26 March, when it was 71 Mbps, the first time over 70 Mbps since last December (5 Mbps today). With his secondary laptop, it was an average 20 Mbps for three weeks until 26 March, when it was 61 Mbps, one of the few times over 60 Mbps since last December (68 Mbps today). Seldom have two laptops been treated the same way at any one time, unless we have been cut off the internet altogether for anything up to 7 days to date. This month is an unprecedented sixth consecutive month for this sustained targeting of one or more of our laptops. (The second day since last December that Declan had two laptops functioning above 50 Mbps was on 6 April; and the fifth day within the same six-month period that his primary laptop was back to the usual normal of above 70 Mbps was on 11 May.)
__________________________
[1] The sustained cutting of Declan’s secondary laptop from the internet continued throughout the morning of 2 April (nine cuts in total) as he updated with two laptops the Futurism section of our Church and State website for Rumelhart Prize laureates. The following week we had the honour of listing a third Rumelhart Prize laureate as an Honorary Associate. The Rumelhart Prize was founded in 2001 to introduce the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for cognitive science.
TV interference: 23 days these past 15 weeks it’s been 0% Signal Quality and that includes three days in a row for two weeks running (then it’s been particular free view and/or subscription channels that are unwatchable, today included)
2 January: We have once again lost all free view channels using our second BT TV YouView box (day 4). This time it’s on an on-off basis and by far more off than on. Four cuts during this period on what’s left on HDMI input without these channels. We have had three BT engineers in our flat to date to no avail. No equipment, phone line or aerial fault detected. When we switch from HDMI to Antenna, we have always had and continue to have perfect reception on free view channels using our aerial.
From My Picks:
Our list of 301 Honorary Associates includes 20 Nobel Prize laureates, 18 US National Medal laureates and 13 knighted professors notwithstanding the excessive targeting of these categories of emails in particular. (Last month Declan had the honour of adding the 20th Nobel laureate to the list, having had an average of 85% of his emails blocked for over a week.)
http://churchandstate.org.uk/honorary-associates/
“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 (1930-2020), (then) President, Americans for Religious Liberty
