Dear Mr Bimmler,

Request for an internal review of the decision to withhold information under section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Following your request for an internal review of the decision by the Greater London Authority (GLA) to withhold the information that you requested, I am now writing to inform you of the completion of the review and of its outcome.

You originally made a request for:

In a response dated 9 February 2009, the GLA acknowledged that it held relevant material but declined to disclose it, citing the exemption at s.31 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which relates to law enforcement.

In line with best practice and the GLA's procedures, a director or equivalent other than the one who made the original decision undertook the review (in this instance the Chief Executive undertook the review).

As well as looking at the relevant information held by the GLA, the Chief Executive considered the circumstances that led the original director to approve the exemption. In particular, he considered your assertion that the exemption was invalid as the release of the records mentioned would not prejudice the ongoing investigation of the monitoring officer. The legal officer present at the internal review confirmed that the requested information was relevant to the investigation by the monitoring officer.

The GLA has a public duty to ensure that the investigation procedure can be carried out in a fair and effective way. In order to do this it is essential that information which may form the basis of any conclusion reached is not released in a piecemeal fashion or before the investigating officer has been allowed to conduct their proper investigations and consider the relevance of any information provided, as otherwise this could result in an unfair decision being reached. This is not in the interests of the public or the individuals involved. At the time of the request, Section 31 was therefore engaged because the GLA needed to consider the likely effects of disclosure on the investigation procedure. In this instance it was considered that disclosure of the requested information would be piecemeal in nature and would not provide a complete picture of the events which took place before and after the arrest of Damian Green. Premature release of this information could have led to potentially prejudicial effects on the individual case, the probity of the investigation and the operation of the Greater London Authority more widely. For these reasons the original decision to withhold the information was upheld.

The Chief Executive was aware when carrying out the review that the investigation is now complete and that use of the exemption was time sensitive pending the completion. The Chief Executive concluded that the report of the completed investigation, now available on the GLA website, covers all parts of the investigation and therefore the prejudice to the investigation is no longer applicable. We are therefore now able to make available to you the information which you originally requested. Please see the documents attached.

I hope that this review has addressed your concerns on this matter. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of this review, you are entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to investigate your complaint. His contact details are as follows:

FOI/EIR Complaints Resolution

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

If you have any further questions relating to this matter, please contact me, ensuring that you quote the reference at the top of this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Robinson

Information Governance Officer

If you are unhappy with the way the GLA has handled your request, you may complain using the GLA's comments and complaints procedure, available at http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/comments/index.jsp .

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Our ref: MGLA230209-8363

Your ref:

Date: 08 April 2009

Michael Bimmler

[email address]