April 2005 Archives

Home Office internal review request Identity Cards Programme Team meeting diaries etc. unsatisfactory FOIA disclosure

By wtwu on April 18, 2005 11:57 AM | 2 Comments

We have sent off a request to the Home Office for an Independent Internal Review, regarding the handling of the FOIA request for the meeting diaries etc. of the home Office Identity Cards Programme Team, following the unsatisfactory partial disclosure.

One point worth checking is the address to which paper copies of letters should be sent. Is it to the Information Policy Team in Marsham Street, as the unsatisfactory reply states, or is it to the Home Office Information Access Manager of the Record Management Service, apparently still at the old 50 Queen Anne's Gate offices, as stated on the Home Office FOIA webpage ?

Will our request for a review get "lost" between the two buildings / departments ?

It is necessary to exhaust the internal appeal / review process, before contacting the Information Commissioner.

Continue reading Home Office internal review request Identity Cards Programme Team meeting diaries etc. unsatisfactory FOIA disclosure.

Partial Disclosure - Home Office Identity Cards Programmes team, no meeting diaries, no agenda, some aggregated expenses

By wtwu on April 6, 2005 6:26 PM | 1 Comment | 1 TrackBack

The Home Office has finally responded, after 50 working days, with a partial disclosure to our Freedom of Information Act Request for:

"official meeting diaries, agendas of meetings, travel and entertainment expenses involving Katherine Courtney, Stephen Harrison, and the post of Head of Marketing, from 11 September 2001"

They are claiming an exemption under Section 35(1)(a) of the Act, "the formulation and development of government policy"

Note that they still do not actually name the "Head of Marketing" for the Identity Cards Programme, which was advertised in October 2004.

We welcome suggestions about what to do next.

Should we re-submit a more limited request, should we request and internal review and then appeal to the Information Commissioner ?

The Home Office response:

Continue reading Partial Disclosure - Home Office Identity Cards Programmes team, no meeting diaries, no agenda, some aggregated expenses.

Home Office still in breach of the Freedom of Information Act re ID Cards Programme team meeting diaries, agenda and expenses

By wtwu on April 2, 2005 10:15 PM

The Home Office have still not complied with our FOIA request for the official meeting diaries, agenda and expenses of senior members of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme team.

This is despite promising to reply "within 15 days" after they were already a week beyond the statutory 20 working days time limit.

Is this a deliberate tactic of neiither complying with the request, nor formally denying it, designed to delay the whole issue until after the forthcoming election ?

Will the attitude change once the Civil Service takes over the running of the country during the General Election period, or will they simply make no Freedom of Information Act decisions at all during this period ?

Is it worth initiating a Home Office Internal Review into these delays, before any refusal or disclosure ?

Continue reading Home Office still in breach of the Freedom of Information Act re ID Cards Programme team meeting diaries, agenda and expenses.

Complaint to the Information Commissioner - OGC Gateway Reviews of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme

By wtwu on April 2, 2005 9:26 PM | 1 TrackBack

All this FOIA stuff is very new, so here is our first attempt at getting the Information Commissioner to review an FOIA request, in this case the saga of the Office of Government Commerce Gateway Reviews of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme.

You can only complain to the Information Commissioner once the public authoritiy's internal review process has been exhausted.

Continue reading Complaint to the Information Commissioner - OGC Gateway Reviews of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme.
« March 2005 | Main Index | Archives | May 2005 »

About this blog

This United Kingdom based blog has been spawned from Spy Blog, and is meant to provide a place to track our Freedom of Information Act 2000 requests to United Kingdom Government and other Public Authorities.

If you have suggestions for other FOIA requests,  bearing in mind the large list of exemptions, then email them to us, or use the comments facility on this blog, and we will see  what we can do, without you yourself having to come under the direct scrutiny of  "Sir Humphrey Appleby" or his minions.

Email Contact

Please feel free to email us your views about this website or news about the issues it tries to comment on:

email: blog @spy[dot]org[dot]uk

Here is our PGP public encryption key or download it via a PGP Keyserver.

WhatDoTheyKnow.com

WhatDoTheyKnow.com - FOIA request submission and publication website from MySociety.org

Campaign Buttons

cfoi_150.jpg
Campaign for the Freedom of Information

NO2ID - opposition to the Home Office's Compulsory Biometric ID Card
NO2ID - opposition to the Home Office's Compulsory Biometric ID Card and National Identity Register centralised database.

Watching Them, Watching Us, UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign
UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign

Peaceful resistance to the curtailment of our rights to Free Assembly and Free Speech in the SOCPA Designated Area around Parliament Square and beyond

Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

irrepressible_banner_03.gif
Amnesty International 's irrepressible.info campaign

Yes, Minister

Yes, Minister Series 1, Episode 1, "Open Government" First airtime BBC: 25 February 1980

"Bernard Woolley: "Well, yes, Sir...I mean, it [open government] is the Minister's policy after all."
Sir Arnold: "My dear boy, it is a contradiction in terms: you can be open or you can have government."

FOIA Links

Campaign for the Freedom of Information

Office of the Information Commissioner,
who is meant to regulate the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Scottish Information Commissioner,
who similarly regulates the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) 2002

Information Tribunal - deals with appeals against decisions by the Information Commissioners.

Freedom of Information pages - Department for Constitutional Affairs

Friends of the Earth FOIA Request Generator and links to contact details for Central Government Departments and their Publication Schemes

UK Government Information Asset Register - in theory, this should point you to the correct Government documents, but in practice...well see for yourself.

Access all Information is also logging some FOIA requests

foi.mysociety.org - prototype FOIA request submission, tracking and publication website

Blog Links

Spy Blog

UK Freedom of Information Act Blog - started by Steve Wood, now handed over to Katherine Gundersen

Your Right To Know - Heather Brooke

Informaticopia - Rod Ward

Open Secrets - a blog about freedom of information by BBC journalist Martin Rosenbaum

Panopticon blog - by Timothy Pitt-Payne and Anya Proops. Timothy Pitt-Payne is probably the leading legal expert on the UK's Freedom of Information Act law, often appearing on behlaf of the Information Commissioner's Office at the Information Tribunal.

Syndicate this site (XML):

Search

Recent Entries

Recent Comments

  • Raquel Kerbow: is the place where i managed to get the new read more
  • Janie Child Development: The other routines: 4. Indoor / outdoor activity time 5. read more
  • girl peeing: Hey, often excellent to find out other persons through the read more
  • Brant Seagers: Tired of obtaining low amounts of useless traffic to your read more
  • Sabina Whisler: Tired of getting low numbers of useless traffic for your read more
  • Geoff Hillyard: My police Union told be that I would be read more
  • Geoff Hillyard: My earlier letter talking about the lie that I read more
  • wtwu: Apart from an automatic email dispaly receipt from public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk Spy read more
  • Reinaldo Assum: Well, this is my first visit to your blog! We read more
  • Britta Gaviglia: I admit, I have not been on this webpage in read more

September 2010

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
      1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30    

Categories

Monthly Archives

Tag Cloud