UK FOIA requests - Spy Blog

The Office of Government Commerce have emailed to say that the High Court date for their appeal against the decision of the Information Tribunal ordering the full publication of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme early Gateway Review reports, has now been brought forward by a day, and is set to start a 3 day hearing this coming for Monday 3rd March 2008 at 10:00am 10:30am , at the Royal Courts of Justice, in the Strand, (Court number still to be decided).

UPDATE: from the Daily Cause List:

ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

[...]

COURT 2

Before MR JUSTICE STANLEY BURNTON

Monday 3 March, 2008

At half past 10

FOR HEARING

CO/4438/2007 Office Of Government Commerce v Information Commissioner S Office

CO/5491/2007 Office Of Government Commerce v Information Commissioner

[...]

Posted by at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the Financial Times the Office of Government Commerce, a creature of Her Majesty's Treasury, headed by Chancellor soon to be Prime Minister Gordon Brown is appealing against the Information Tribunal's decision to uphold the Information Commissioner's decision to order the OGC to publish in full, the documents requested in our Freedom of Information Act for the Stage Zero and two Pre-Stage Zero Gateway Review reports into the Home Office's controversial and hugely expensive Identity Cards Programme.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 Section 59 Appeals from decision of Tribunal does allow for an appeal against the decision of the Information Tribunal to be heard by the High Court, but only on a point of law

59. Any party to an appeal to the Tribunal under section 57 may appeal from the decision of the Tribunal on a point of law to the appropriate court; and that court shall be-

(a) the High Court of Justice in England if the address of the public authority is in England or Wales,
(b) the Court of Session if that address is in Scotland, and
(c) the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland if that address is in Northern Ireland.

We are mystified as to what "points of law" OGC can possibly argue before the High Court.

How much money in legal fees will all these pointless appeals end up costing the taxpayers ?

Gordon Brown is already reneging on his recent promises about "open government" or public transparency and accountability. He does not have to wait to take over as Prime Minister, he could have ordered the documents to be released disclosed already, since the OGC is directly under his control as Chancellor of the Exchequer. It seems unlikely that such an infamous micro-manager, would not be fully aware of the OGC decision to waste further public money on legal costs in this matter.

We are awaiting details of any future High Court dates for this case, which could possibly be done via written submissions without a formal hearing. Hopefully the High Court will decide to reject the OGC appeal.

Posted by at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It looks as if Spy Blog has won another round in the long running attempt to get some of the background information on the Home Office's Identity Cards Programme, which should have been made public before the Identity Cards Act 2006 was debated in Parliament.

Office of Government Commerce v Information Commissioner (2 May 2007) (.pdf 104 kb) {UPDATED link to .pdf file)

Information Tribunal

Appeal Numbers:
EA/2006/0068 and 0080
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Decision Promulgated
02 May 2007

Heard at Procession House, London
On 12, 13, 14 and 16 March 2007

BEFORE
INFORMATION TRIBUNAL CHAIRMAN

John Angel
And

LAY MEMBERS
David Wilkinson and Peter Dixon

Between
OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT COMMERCE
Appellant

And

INFORMATION COMMISSIONER
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Robin Tam QC
For the Respondent: Mr Timothy Pitt-Payne

Decision

The Tribunal upholds the decision notices dated 31st July 2006 and 5th October 2006, except that we find that section 33 as well as section 35 FOIA is engaged, and dismisses the appeals.

[...]

90. The Tribunal has considered all the circumstances of this case and finds that the public interest in maintaining the exemption does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure. In other words we uphold the Commissioner’s Decision Notices in this case.

[...]

Remedies

92. The Tribunal orders that the disputed information is disclosed to the complainants. However before requiring this order to be carried out we are prepared to give the parties 14 days from the date of this decision to make written submissions to us as to whether the names of the individuals listed as Reviewers and Interviewees in the disputed information should be redacted. Once we have determined this matter we will then require the OGC to disclose the information in whatever format we determine within 14 days of that determination.

John Angel
Chairman

Date 02 May 2007

Continue reading "Information Tribunal dismisses OGC Appeal - finds in favour of full disclosure" »

Posted by at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, I managed to sit in on part of the Information Tribunal Hearing which was considering the appeal by the UK Government via Gordon Brown's Treasury agency, the Office of Government Commerce, against the Decision Notice by the Information Commissioner.

See this OGC Gateway Reviews of the Identity Cards Programme category archive for the lengthy saga stemming from my original Freedom of Information Act request in January 2005.

The Information Tribunal hearing sat for 4 days last week, from Monday to Friday, except for Thursday.

I managed to attend as a member of the public, for about two and a half hours on Friday afternoon, basically just to get a flavour of the proceedings, and to put some faces to the names I have seen in print and online over the last few months, since the appeal process was initiated.

Continue reading "A glimpse of the Information Tribunal Hearing" »

Posted by at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We seem to slow shuffling along into the unexplored swamps of the Freedom of Information Act appeals process.

We have received a heavy packet of papers from the Information Tribunal as an "interested party" in the pending Appeal by the Office for Government Commerce against the Information Commissioner's Decision Notice in favour of disclosing the early, and now obsolete, Gateway Reviews of the Home Office's potentially disastrous Identity Cards Programme scheme.

See "Treasury hires expensive lawyers to try to overturn the Decision Notice in our favour regarding Gateway Reviews of the Identity Cards Programme"

This is all well and good, but if we do "join the appeal", it will then be held partly or totally in private, precisely to prevent us, the original Freedom of Information Act request complainant from being shown or hearing any extracts of the Gateway Review reports in question.

Both the lawyers for the Information Commissioner and the Treasury Solicitor Grainne Ross, would not object to us being joined to the Appeal, but they both point out the limited value of any possible written or oral submissions that we could make, since the Gateway Review documents would still be kept secret from us during the proceedings.

We agree with these views, and so we are resigned to having to wait whilst large sums of public money are wasted on legal fees during this Appeal, which we firmly believe should still find in our favour i.e. in favour of the public interest of full public disclosure and publication of these documents.

The other hugely frustrating thing is the it seems that the Oral hearing for the Appeal is set for a 4 day hearing not before 5th March 2007
i.e. 2 years and 3 months after the original Freedom of Information Act request

This lengthy delay, and complicated proceedings, and expensive legal fees paid for by the taxpayer, run completely counter to the supposed "open government" policy, which the Freedom of Information Act is supposed to promote.

We will write to John Angel, the Chairman of the Information Tribunal accordingly.

UPDATE:

According to the Information Tribunal Pending Appeals document dated 6th December 2006 (.pdf), It looks as if the Appeal hearing is now set for

Full hearing 12,13,14 and 16th March 2007 at Procession House London

Continue reading "Information Tribunal - join the Appeal or not ? - now set for 12,13,14 and 16th March 2007 at Procession House, London" »

Posted by at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It appears that the unlimited resoirces of the Treasury are being harnessed tot try to overturn this Decision Notice in favour of full disclosure of the reports we asked to be published in our FOIA request

Kablent reports via The Register:

Treasury fights to keep Gateway closed
'Defending integrity', apparently
By Kablenet
Published Friday 20th October 2006 09:27 GMT

The government has hired legal experts in an effort to block publication of Gateway reviews of the National Identity Card programme.

Legal representation will come from the Treasury's Solicitors department, which has had approval to bring in external legal experts and a Queen's Counsel to fight a decision by the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, that two Gateway Reviews on ID cards can be published. The use of legal experts is expected to cost between £20,000 and £50,000.

Continue reading "Treasury hires expensive lawyers to try to overturn the Decision Notice in our favour regarding Gateway Reviews of the Identity Cards Programme" »

Posted by at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Finally, after over a year and four months, the Information Commissioner has issued a Decison Notice regarding our complaint about the Office for Government Commerce's refusal to publish the Stage Zero Gateway Reviews of the Home Office's Identity Cards Programme.

Basically, the Information Commissioner has ruled in our favour, and has dismissed the OGC's public interest exemption claims under "Section 33 - audit functions" and "Section 35 - formulation and development of government policy."

The OGC have 28 days to lodge an appeal with the Information Tribunal, or else they must, by law, disclose the requested information within 35 calendar days.

Read the full text: Information Commissioner Decision Notice re OGC Stage Zero Gateway Reviews of the Identity Cards Programme (11 pages)

Apart from shedding some light on the controversial Idenity Cards Programme, which the Information Commissioner deems to be of such national impact on the general public, that more transparency and open government is required, this ruling is also notable for the way in which the OGC's excuse for secrecy, namely that publication might reduce the frank and open discussions which a Gateway Review collates and analyses anonymously. The Information Commissioner basically cited the Civil Service Code back att the OGC - it is the duty of Civil Servants to be frank, open and honest with their best and most professional opinions and advice, at all times, and publication of Gateway Reviews should make no difference to this.

This is highly significant, as even Select Committees of the House of Commons, such as the Public Accounts Committee or the home Affairs Committee have not been given access to OGC Gateway Reviews, even in private.

The OGC even tried to prevent the Information Commissioner from sending him a hardcopy of the Gateway Reviews, but eventually had to relent.

Continue reading "Information Commissioner Decision Notice re OGC Stage Zero Gateway Reviews of the Identity Cards Programme - ruling in favour of full disclosure" »

Posted by at 4:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)