consulting interested parties

Dear Sir or Madam,

On 28th August, Francis Irving requested an internal review of an
FOI request entitled "Online petitions documents from PICT". You
can see the full history of the request here.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/on...

On 24th October, Bob Castle, the FOI officer for the House of
Commons, wrote:

"As previously noted the issues that you have asked us to review
are complex and the need to consult interested parties and test
options is taking longer than hoped"

Please could you send me all internal documents and email relating
to the consideration, consultation and testing of options relating
to the review of that FOI request.

Yours faithfully,

John Cross

Dear Mr Castle,

You have declined to answer my Freedom of Information Act request
citing 36(2)(b)(i&ii).

"Information to which this section applies is exempt information
if, in the reasonable opinion of a qualified person, ..."

As you know a "qualified person" in relation to information held by
the House of Commons, means the Speaker of the House.

Nobody can know what the Speaker's "reasonable opinion" on a
request is without having been in contact with the Speaker in
relation to that request. The Speaker cannot form a reasonable
opinion about a request for information without having been
informed of the details of that request.

Please can you therefore confirm that prior to your email of 10
March 2009:

(i) you were in contact with the Speaker in relation to his opinion
of my request

(ii) the Speaker had been informed of the details of my request

(iii) the Speaker's opinion was that the release of the information
would be prejudicial to the free and frank provision of
advice/exchange of views for the purposes of deliberation

In your email you wrote:

"If the decision to apply section 36 of the 2000 Act in respect of
your request is upheld by review, a certificate signed by the
Speaker may be issued. This certificate would provide conclusive
evidence that
the exemption was required for the purpose described above."

I will only accept such a certificate to be conclusive evidence if
I received a certificate signed by the Speaker. I regret that I
cannot accept a scan or a copy. I will send you my postal address
in a separate email.

Yours sincerely,

John Cross

Dear Bob Castle,

Thank you for your email in which you wrote: "I am sorry that we
have not met our internal target for responding to your request for
a review. We will provide a response as soon as possible."

ICO Good Practice Note 5 states that:

"In view of all the above the Commissioner considers that a
reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working
days from the date of the
request for review. There may be a small number of cases which
involve exceptional circumstances where it may be reasonable to
take longer. In those circumstances, the public authority should,
as a matter of good practice, notify the requester and explain why
more time is needed. In our view, in no case should the total time
taken exceed 40 working days."

Please can you confirm that I will receive a full response to my
request for an internal review before the end of the working week.
If you cannot confirm that I will have to consider contacting the
ICO.

Yours sincerely,

John Cross

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your email in which you wrote: "I am sorry that we
have not met our internal target for responding to your request for
a review. We will provide a response as soon as possible."

ICO Good Practice Note 5 states that:

"In view of all the above the Commissioner considers that a
reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working
days from the date of the request for review. There may be a small
number of cases which involve exceptional circumstances where it
may be reasonable to take longer. In those circumstances, the
public authority should, as a matter of good practice, notify the
requester and explain why more time is needed. In our view, in no
case should the total time taken exceed 40 working days."

Please can you confirm that I will receive a full response to my
request for an internal review before the end of the working week.
If you cannot confirm that I will have to consider contacting the
ICO.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...

I have sent a message to Bob Castle earlier today but I received an
out of office reply so I am writing again.

Yours sincerely,

John Cross

Dear Sir or Madam,

On 1 May 2009 the House of Commons wrote "We will provide a
response as soon as possible."

Please can you now respond.

Yours sincerely,

John Cross

Dear Sirs
Please can you provide a date by which I will receive a response. I
appreciate that current employees may be busy but it this
responsibility of those who decide how many staff are employed to
ensure enough staff are available to meet an authority's legal
obligations.

I look forward to a full response.

Yours sincerely,

John Cross

Dear Sir or Madam,

In previous correspondence you wrote:

"Our internal target for dealing with reviews is thirty working
days. We will deal with this promptly and endeavour to provide a
response by 24 April 2009."

You have yet to respond. Your handling of my initial request has
been unsatisfactory. Your handling of my review has been
unsatisfactory.

Please can you provide a response in the next five working days. I
have been very patient but I am prepared to appeal to the ICO if
necessary.

Yours faithfully,

John Cross

Dear Sir or Madam,

When you failed to carry out an internal review with a reasonable
time frame I sent you a reminder. I have sent several reminders
since but no internal review has been carried out. This is the last
reminder.

If you fail to set out an appropriate timetable for responding in
full to my request for an internal view before 5:30 pm tomorrow (31
August 2009) I will appeal to the ICO. I have tried several times
to avoid having to do this.

I am disappointed both with your handling of my request for
information and the fact that you have not carried out an internal
review in a reasonable time.

regards,

John

Dear Sirs

In your previous email you wrote:

"As you will be aware, a new Speaker has recently been elected. It
was unfortunately not possible to consult with the new Speaker with
respect to the application of the section 36 exemption to your
request before the start of the summer recess. Arrangements have
been made to take your request to the Speaker as soon as possible
after the summer recess and we expect
to be able to respond to you as soon as possible after that."

I do not accept this as a valid excuse for the House of Commons
continuing failure to respond to my request for an internal review
in a reasonable time period.

The office of Speaker is not vacant during a recess so if it is
required by law that he is consulted then he can and must be
consulted. Parliament when it passed the Freedom of Information Act
2000 could have legislated to give the Commons a special extension
when the House was in recess, it chose not to do so.

Your failure to consult the speaker means that you cannot properly
reply on the exemption you referred to in previous correspondence.
Please therefore respond immediately and provide all information
requested.

regards,

John Cross

Dear Sirs,

I am still waiting for the information I requested in February
2009. On 11 March 2009 you acknowledged receipt of my request for
an internal review. This internal review has not yet finished.

On 6 May 2009 I reminded you that ICO Good Practice Note 5 states
(in relation to internal reviews):

"In our view, in no case should the total time taken exceed 40
working days."

I was later told:

"Arrangements have been made to take your request
to the Speaker as soon as possible after the summer recess and we
expect to be able to respond to you as soon as possible after
that."

I hope that my review can now be completed.

Yours sincerely,

John Cross

Dear Sirs

Please could you update me as to the progress of my internal
review.

It would appear to me that if the Speaker had felt it appropriate
to issue a certificate in respect of this request he has had ample
time to do so as it is more than 8 months since I made my initial
request.

Is it possible that the Speaker shares my view that the information
should be released?

Yours sincerely,

John Cross

Dear House of Commons,

I wrote on 9 November to ask about my request. You have yet to
respond to that email in which I asked if you could "update me as
to the progress of my internal
review"

On 12 March 2009 you acknowledged receipt of my request for an
internal review a review which has not yet been completed.

I refer you again to ICO Good Practice Note 5 which states that:

"In view of all the above the Commissioner considers that a
reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working
days from the date of the
request for review. There may be a small number of cases which
involve exceptional circumstances where it may be reasonable to
take longer. In those circumstances, the public authority should,
as a matter of good practice, notify the requester and explain why
more time is needed. In our view, in no case should the total time
taken exceed 40 working days."

regards,

John Cross