Tag: Sandy Hermiston
MoT gets to keep cruise letters secret
(CNS): With just over five weeks to go before Cayman goes to the polls to decide whether or not the people want the controversial cruise berthing project to go ahead, the ombudsman has sided with government on keeping key correspondence with the cruise lines secret. Sandy Hermiston has come down in favour of the commercial […]
Carter’s pay-off remains secret
(CNS): How much the public purse coughed up to pay off the former director of the Department of Environmental Health, Roydell Carter, will remain a secret, as the Office of the Ombudsman has upheld a decision by government to refuse a freedom of information request made last September. Despite finding that government should not be […]
Immigration ignores FOI requests
(CNS): The Department of Immigration (DoI) has admitted that a shortage of resources and its transition into two new agencies, the Customs and Border Control Agency and Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman, left it unable to manage freedom of information requests. The Office of the Ombudsman, which deals with appeals relating to troublesome requests, found […]
Transport unit dodges FOI with poor records
(CNS): The ombudsman has let the Public Transportation Unit (PTU) off the hook over a refused freedom of information request because of its poor record keeping. In Sandy Hermiston’s latest decision regarding an applicant’s appeal over a denied public records request, she has upheld the PTU’s refusal because trying to compile the statistics asked for would […]
Ombudsman works through 100+ old cop complaints
(CNS): The Office of the Ombudsman is in the process of dealing with more than 120 complaints about the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service that it has received since it was established at the beginning of this year, most of which are historical grievances going back as far as 2010. Ombudsman Sandy Hermiston and her […]
Bean counters get to keep lid on CIIPA
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Institute of Public Accountants does not have to reveal anything to the public as the Office of the Ombudsman has confirmed that the Freedom of Information Law does not apply to the industry body. Publishing the most recent decision from her office this week, Ombudsman Sandy Hermiston said it was “an important […]
Ministry rejects need to apologise over FOI
(CNS): The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has made it clear that no one from there will be apologising over the alleged mishandling of a freedom of information request and has taken aim at the Ombudsman, suggesting her press release was “unwarranted”. A release from the office of Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson said the […]
Ombudsman urges ministry to say ‘sorry’
(CNS): The Office of the Ombudsman has urged the finance ministry to offer an apology to an applicant who made a freedom of information request over stamp duty abatement records after the office found that the request had been badly handled. In the end the applicant was able to secure the records she was seeking […]
Local lawyer and cop join ombudsman
(CNS): Local attorney and two-time political hopeful Sharon Roulstone has been appointed as the deputy ombudsman in the complaints division of the newly amalgamated office, which covers freedom of information as well as complaints about the public service. Peter McLoughlin, a former UK cop who has been with the RCIPS for nine years and previously […]
Ombudsman says FOI is ‘inalienable right’
(CNS): The new supra-ombudsman has said that the freedom of information is a vital part of government openness and transparency. Sandy Hermiston arrived in Cayman last month to take over the helm of the newly combined and challenging office of public service complains, police complaints, whistle-blowing and data protection. On Cayman’s Right to Know Day, she […]
