We have had a reply, just within the 20 working days statutory limit to our FOIA request for the Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment, dealing with the United Nations Measures Order 2006, which was mentioned as being available on the HM Treasury website, but which plainly was not.
This lengthy and complicated set of far reaching powers, backed up with criminal penalties, are to enforce "freezing" of allegedly terrorist financial assets.
Since there has been no debate or scrutiny in Parliament about these extended bureaucratic red tape powers, one would have hoped that the Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment might have made things clearer.
The RIA is available on the OPSI website and you can access it via the following link.
According to the (,pdf) meta data, this was created by the Privy Council on 11th October 2006, so why it has taken the Treasury so long to make it available is a mystery.
However, the document admits that there has been no actual consultation with anybody, and it makes unsubstantiated claims that there will be no impact or cost to , for example, small businesses, despite the wording being so catch-all as to encompass every "person" in the United Kingdom, both individuals and corporate entities.
We look forward to the other two, probably duplicated word for word, Partial Regulatory impact Assessments, for the other two, almost identical and overlapping United Nations Measures Orders, which mention the Taliban and AL Qaida (even though everyone covered under these financial sanctions will already be under the first United Nations Measures Order 2006), and North Korea, which is also a duplication of the other two Orders, both of which already automatically include anyone sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council anyway.
Confused ? Surely not, after all Gordon Brown has promised a "25% cut in red tape", some time in the future.
Why it took a formal Freedom of Information Act request to get sight of a document which was publicly promised to already have been published on-line in October, and which contains so little meaningful or believable detail, is a mystery to us.
The FOIA reply from the Treasury via email, as an attached (,pdf) file, with a (.tif) image scan of the Partial RIA:
HM Treasury1 Horse Guards Road London
SW1A 2HQXXX
Email to: [email address]
Information Rights Unit
Tel: 0207 270 4558
Fax: 0207 270 4861
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk11 December 2006
IRU Case Number:6/683
Ref: email/5719/2006Dear XXX
Freedom Of Information Request
Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which we
received on 13 November. You asked for:‘The Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment mentioned in
the Explanatory Notes to Statutory Instrument 2006 No. 2657
The Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20062657.htm’
I am sorry that you have not had a response to your earlier enquiries about how to
access a copy of the RIA
.
The RIA is available on the OPSI website and you can access it via the following link.http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/em2006/uksiem_20062657_en.pdf
In case you have difficulty accessing the information via the link I am attaching a copy with this email.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.
Yours sincerely,
[name of civil servant]
Information Rights UnitYour Right to Complain
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make a complaint or request a review of our decision, you should write to
HM Treasury,
Information Rights Unit, 2/S2,
1 Horse Guards Road,
London SW1A 2HQ.
Email – public.enquiries@hm-treasury.gov.ukIf you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Treasury. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
The Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF.
We have still not yet heard back from HM Treasury, regarding our second FOIA request, for the, what we suspected were likely to be virtually word for word identical Partial regulatory Impact Assessments for the other two United Nations Measures Orders.
These have now been published on OPSI, but still not yet on the HM Treasury website:
Explanatory memorandum to the North Korea (United Nations Measures) Order 2006
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/em2006/uksiem_20062958_en.pdf
Explanatory Memorandum to the Al-Qaida and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2006
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/em2006/uksiem_20062952_en.pdf