This arose as ERC claimed they had not received an email request for a FOI review(it would appear they did not receive a message from 'our' mail server)


------ Original Message ------
From: "Lucas, Paul" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Sent: Thursday, 25 Apr, 2019 At 10:45
Subject: FW: Automatic reply: [SUSPECTED SPAM] State of Men's Gym Changing area in Eastwood Park gym - Convener for Community Services and Community Safety

Sorry for the delayed response.

I have spoken with the relevant managers and colleagues in relation your query.

Firstly, in relation to me advising that you would receive a message that your email would had been blocked, this is actually not the case, so please accept my apologies for this incorrect information.

The current Council procedure is that the intended recipient (Cllr Merrick) would receive a message from our mail server advising that he has been sent an email which exceeds size limits and they should contact our Service Desk to get this released.

In terms of the email size restriction, this is in place to protect ERC from external people/agencies flooding our network and email server by continually trying to send very large attachments.

10mb is the current size set by our email system.

As for the size of your email, the total size will include the attachments plus the actual text of the email, which can include headers and footers added by your ISP, which can sometimes be graphics files and hidden content, so this can occasionally push this over the threshold.

Lastly, the reason your email has come up with SUSPECTED SPAM is down to our email content filter making an assessment based on what it sees in the senders domain, subject heading and email content.

This is based on industry standard automated rules managed by the vendor and is a key protection and awareness mechanism for the Council.

We receive many similarly marked emails that are not spam but the filter has assessed that it cannot be sure so warns the recipient rather than blocking more emails than it would ordinarily do. This marking for emails received from your particular email domain (btinternet.com) is not uncommon.

I hope this further clarifies your enquiry?

Kind Regards
Paul M. Lucas
Service Delivery Manager
Corporate and Community Services
East Renfrewshire: Your Council, Your Future


Sent: 23 April 2019 14:49
To: Lucas, Paul < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Subject: Fwd: Automatic reply: [SUSPECTED SPAM] State of Men's Gym Changing area in Eastwood Park gym - Convener for Community Services and Community Safety

Hi Paul

Sorry, in addition, could you please also investigate why my emails from ERC email system are marked [SUSPECTED SPAM] as the example below.

Thanks



------ Original Message ------
From: "Walker, Margaret" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Sent: Tuesday, 23 Apr, 2019 At 11:58
Subject: Automatic reply: [SUSPECTED SPAM] State of Men's Gym Changing area in Eastwood Park gym - Convener for Community Services and Community Safety

I will be out of the office with no access to e-mails.until Wednesday 24 April 2019

Please resend any e-mails to:

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Thanks
Margaret Walker


From: "Lucas, Paul" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Sent: Friday, 12 Apr, 2019 At 08:06
Subject: RE: Council Email issue

Sorry for the delay. A few of the colleagues I need to discuss this with are off on Easter holidays but I will take it up with them on their return next week.

In terms of the 10mb restriction, I think that was a decision that was corporately made some years ago as anything larger would cause bigger problems in our mail server.

I will however clarify this.

Kind Regards

Paul

Sent: 11 April 2019 17:39
To: Lucas, Paul < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Cc: McAleese, Laura < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Subject: Re: Council Email issue

Hi Paul

Would appreciate update.

Thanks


------ Original Message ------
To: "Lucas, Paul" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Cc: "McAleese, Laura" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Sent: Thursday, 4 Apr, 2019 At 11:24
Subject: Re: Council Email issue

Hi Paul

Thank you for this.

Why is there a 10MB restriction?

My email had 2 x photos attached each 3.9MB = 7.8MB ?

Why would this be blocked?

I did not receive an email 'advising this was blocked'.

I am extremely concerned that I cannot email my Elected Representatives(and Council Officials)with important information and I am extremely concerned that I am not informed that my emails to my Elected Representatives(and Council Officials) have been blocked.

Would appreciate if you can indeed investigate.

Thanks

------ Original Message ------
From: "Lucas, Paul" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Cc: "McAleese, Laura" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Sent: Thursday, 4 Apr, 2019 At 09:19
Subject: Council Email issue

Thank you for contacting us in relation to the issue you have been having sending emails to various East Renfrewshire Council employees.

I have investigated this for you, and from our records we can only see that one email was blocked due to size restriction.

This email was sent to Cllr Colm Merrick on 1st April 2019.

The size restriction for our mail server is 10MB.

On that note, you should have received an email advising this was blocked, so it would be good to know if you did indeed receive this? If you did not receive this email, I can certainly investigate further.

Unfortunately, we do not hold email tracking indefinitely so any potential issues you may have had before this are not available for us to track.

I hope this may clarify your issue, however do not hesitate to contact me regarding any other questions you may have?

Kind Regards

Paul

What is the complaint:-

Hi

This is not specifically to do with Council Website but with Council Email service.

Emails with attachments from myself are not reaching Council Staff and/or Councillors.

There is no problem with emails that do not contain attachments.

Emails sent by myself to

Anthony McReavy(ERCLT)

Margaret Walker (ERCLT)

Craig Geddes

Graeme Maxwell

Gerry Mahon

Cllr Jim Swift

Cllr Colm Merrick

containing attachments(Photos/Documents) have not been received.

What is the problem?

Please advise how these should be emailed.

How would the customer like the complaint resolved:-

Please explain problem.

Please advise how these attachments should be emailed.

Response deadline = 9 April 2019.

Paul M. Lucas
Service Delivery Manager
Corporate and Community Services
East Renfrewshire: Your Council, Your Future

This does not account for that very busy conveyor, Colm Merrick, not answering emails from residents.

This is just not a recent problem. Council Officials have been aware long before this email, that the ERC email system had been losing emails !!


------ Original Message ------
From: "Tait, Alison" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >
Sent: Thursday, 17 Oct, 2019 At 15:42

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, your emails of 3 October and 10 October were not delivered. I can confirm safe receipt of your emails of 17 October at 11.07 and 13.59.

I asked our IT Department to determine why your emails of 3 and 10 October, addressed to myself, had not been received and they confirmed that these had been caught in our Secure Email Gateway as being spam.

Following further investigation by officers in IT, an issue was identified with our mail filtering system with incoming mail from certain providers (BT Internet being one of them) which wrongly categorised some emails as spam.

This issue has now been resolved and emails from these providers, sent into the Council in previous weeks, are now being released to their intended recipients.

I can only apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I have now passed your email of 13 August 2019 to our Chief Executive.

Kind regards

Alison Tait
Executive Assistant to Chief Executive