Contract with CSC for National ID Scheme

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please supply a copy of the following documents, which form a part
of the contract awarded 7th April 2009 to CSC to upgrade IPS’
application and enrolment system:

1. The Service Agreement Schedules and annexes (in the
order 1-x, or 2-x followed by 1 if Schedule/Annex 1 is entitled
"Definitions", where x is the number of documents)

2. The Service Agreement which contains conditions specific to a
contract

3. The Framework Agreement which sets out the core terms for
contracts awarded, if different to the Framework Agreement with
Thales

4. Any and all other documents which form a part of this contract,
in ascending order of the number of pages within the document. For
documents with the same number of pages, the documents should be
considered in ascending alphabetical order of their titles.

Please supply as many pages as possible, starting with page 1 of
the document appearing first in the ordering as specified above,
and proceeding sequentially through the pages of this document
followed by the remainder of the above listed documents, in order,
to the extent that my request would not be subject to exemption
under section 12 of the FOIA.

If you are considering applying the section 12 exemption to any
extent in the face of clear Information Commissioner and
Information Tribunal decisions to the contrary, please bear in mind
that:

a) A refusal to answer my request in full will result in an appeal
to the Information Commissioner, which will undoubtedly result in a
decision consistent with his earlier decisions;

b) It is in the public interest that public money is spent on the
substantive activities of releasing information under FOIA, rather
than on an unnecessary appeal to the Information Commissioner.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Collingbourne

Dear H Reid,

My request regarding the CSC contract is now overdue; please let me
know when I can expect a response.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Collingbourne

Dear sir/madam,

I am requesting an internal review of the handling of my request
FOICR 11863/09.

I disagree that IPS is able to apply the section 22(1) exemption.
The language of this exemption refers to an intention to publish
that existed "at the time when the request for information was
made" (FOIA s22(1)(b)). However, according to a further response
received from IPS (ref FOICR 12395/09), the decision to prepare the
information to be published was made on 1 July 2009, well after my
request was made on 12 May 2009.

Even if this were not the case, IPS does not have an apparent
intention to publish the information I requested in all cases.
According to the same response from IPS, the intention to publish
does not exist for documents with "commercial, security or
technical sensitivity". Instead of the redacted documentation being
released, IPS only plans to release a summary which may not contain
all releasable information in the document.

Turning to the section 12 exemption, I disagree that this applies
at all due to Mr J Jenkins v Information Commissioner and
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, EA/2006/0067.
Please remember that your own policy cannot override the decisions
of the Information Tribunal which in our common law legal system
should be considered law. Even if the exemption did apply, I also
disagree that a refined request is necessary to "understand the
exact information [I] require". In my original request I have been
very specific about which documents and even which pages I would
like you to consider and in which order and I fail to see how I can
be more specific than this.

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

Yours faithfully,

Peter Collingbourne

Dear Adrian Brook,

I am still awaiting a response to my internal review request. It
has already been over 4 months since I requested this review.

I intend to refer this matter to the ICO if a response is not
received by the end of this month.

You may be interested to know that the Information Tribunal has yet
again disagreed with the IPS's interpretation of section 12 in a
recent decision (The Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police v
IC, EA/2009/0029).

Yours sincerely,

Peter Collingbourne

Dear Mr Crothers,

Thank you for your email.

If you intend to disclose exactly the same information as will be
posted on the IPS website, it will suffice for the information to
be posted on the website, and I will ask the WhatDoTheyKnow team to
archive it.

I hope to receive the information by the end of February. I do not
consider any further delays to be warranted, and I intend to
complain to the ICO if I do not receive it by that time.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Collingbourne

Dear Mr Crothers,

I have downloaded the redacted versions of the Service Agreements
from the IPS website. I have been unable to find the Framework
Agreement (or Agreements). You will note that this formed part 3 of
both of my original requests. Please ensure that this is released
without delay.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Collingbourne

Dear Mr Crothers,

Part 3 of both requests was not intended to request the "core
terms", it was clearly intended to request the "Framework
Agreement". The phrasing "core terms" was intended to help you to
identify the document I sought.

From reading the Service Agreements it is quite clear that the
Framework Agreement(s) are a separate document with separate terms.
For example, the definition of "Framework Dispute Resolution
Procedure" in Schedule 1 to both Service Agreements refers to a
Schedule 4 (Framework Dispute Resolution Procedure) of the
Framework Agreement. I have found no such schedule in either
Service Agreement. Both Service Agreements contain a Service
Dispute Resolution Procedure, but why else would clause 46 of both
Service Agreements make a distinction between them?

The same clause contains a reference to Schedule 3 (Governance,
Partnering and Framework Management) of the Framework Agreement
which is again distinguished from Schedule 28 (Governance,
Partnering and Service Agreement Management) to the Service
Agreements.

Furthermore, clause 94.1 of both Service Agreements begins "This
Service Agreement together with (i) the Framework Agreement ..."
clearly referring to the Service and Framework Agreements as
separate documents.

I have already complained to the ICO regarding your failure to
disclose the Framework Agreement(s) together with what I consider
to be excessive redactions to the Service Agreements.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Collingbourne