I am the review officer appointed to undertake the internal review, being someone who works in an area of the Department having no past or present dealings in relation to the Framework convention, and who had no involvement in the handling of your original request.

You asked for an internal review of the response by Communities and Local Government to your Freedom of Information request of the 22 January 2009, requesting information pertaining to the decision to exclude the Cornish from the Framework Convention for the protection of national minorities.  More specifically you requested answers to the following questions in your initial request:

As per the reply from Ian Naysmith to your request of 22nd January, the first and fourth questions call for expressions of opinion on the part of officials - because no recorded information on these questions is held by the Department they don't qualify as requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act of 2000. Only the second and third questions are considered to be requests for information under the Act, therefore only these questions will be considered within this review.

Your request for an Internal Review was received on 6 February 2009.  This stated that:

Ian Naysmith's reply to you of 4th February confirmed that the Department held information falling within the second and third questions in your request and that this information was exempt information by virtue of the exemptions at Section 35(1) (a) and (b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. These sections state, respectively, that information is exempt information if it relates to (a) the formulation or development of government policy or (b) Ministerial communications.  The reply went on to conclude that the balance of public interest was judged to weigh in favour of maintaining the exemptions rather than disclosing the information in view of the detrimental effect that disclosing this information would have on the ability of Ministers to carry out free and frank discussion with ministerial colleagues and officials, without undue fear that these discussions will be made public. 

If Ministers and officials felt, that once a decision had been made, that information pertaining to the process by which they had reached that point was to be released (such as the timing and sequencing of meetings) they might be less willing to engage in full and frank discussions of the available options. This in turn could jeopardise the ability of Ministers to take decisions based on full advice and thorough consideration, which could undermine the quality of policy-making. The disclosure of the information you have requested could erode the space within which policy is developed and therefore the exemptions cited above do apply.

The criteria for inclusion under the Framework Convention would ultimately have been decided by Ministers across Government.  Information held by this Department about such discussions does, in my view, relate to the formulation or development of government policy and I have therefore concluded that the exemption at section 35(1)(a) of the FOI Act was correctly engaged. Similarly, the information held by the Department about communications between ministers clearly relates to ministerial communications and the exemption at section 35(1)(b) of the FOI Act was also therefore correctly engaged for that information.

In applying the exemptions above, Ian Naysmith would have to have considered the public interest in maintaining the exemptions against the public interest in disclosing the information. Whilst I recognise that the decisions that Ministers make have a significant interest for the general public and there is a public interest in more information being made available about the role the Ministers play, I agree with the conclusion drawn in this case, that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

I have now carefully reviewed the papers, and I believe that the response provided to your request for information was correct.

If you are not satisfied with my decision, you may write to the Information Commissioner asking him to decide whether Communities and Local Government have complied with their obligations under the Act. You should direct any such appeal to: