Devolution procedures

Mr Wyllie made this Freedom of Information request to Home Office

The request was partially successful.

From: Mr Wyllie

24 January 2010

Dear Sir or Madam,

This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information
(Scotland) Act 2000.

Please provide me with information about:

(a) current guidance made by the Home Office and given to staff and
Ministers that is available on a Home Office intranet and that
deals with how to comply with the Concordat between the Home Office
and the Scottish Executive,
(b) the existance and results of any assessments undertaken since
1st January 2008 about the way in which the Home Office co-operates
with the Scottish Administration, and
(c) communications between the Scotland Office and the Home Office
about working with the Scottish Administration made since 1st
January 2009.

Please provide copies of relevant documents in an electronic
format.

Thank you for your help.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Wyllie

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From: Information Access
Home Office

27 January 2010

Dear Mr Wyllie

Thank you for your e-mail of 24 January in which you ask for various
information about how the Home Office works with the Scottish Executive.
Your request is being handled as a request for information under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We will aim to send you a full response by 21 February, which is twenty
working days from the date when we received your request.

If you have any questions about the handling of your information request,
please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Steve Kirk

Information Access Team

Information Management Service

Financial and Commercial Group

Ground Floor (NW), Seacole Building

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

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From: Snelling Alice
Home Office

15 February 2010

Dear Mr Wyllie

I am writing further to Steve Kirk's email of 27 January, about your
request for information with regard to how the Home Office works with the
Scottish Executive. Your request is being handled as a request for
information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We are considering your request. Although the Act carries a presumption
in favour of disclosure, it provides exemptions which may be used to
withhold information in specified circumstances. Some of these
exemptions, referred to as `qualified exemptions', are subject to a public
interest test. This test is used to balance the public interest in
disclosure against the public interest in favour of withholding the
information. The Act allows us to exceed the 20 working day response
target where we need to consider the public interest test fully.

The information which you have requested is being considered under the
exemptions in section 23(1) of the Act - security matters - and in section
31(1)(a) - administration of justice. These are qualified exemptions and
to consider the public interest test fully we need to extend the 20
working day response period. We now aim to let you have a full response
by 19 March 2010.

If you have any questions about the handling of your information request
then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Alice Snelling

Information Access Team

Information Management Service

Financial and Commercial Group

Ground Floor (NW), Seacole Building

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

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From: FOI Requests
Home Office

11 March 2010

Dear Mr Wyllie

When we wrote to you on 15 February about your request for information as
to how the Home Office works with the Scottish Executive, we said we
needed to extend the target date to reply because it was necessary to
decide if any of the requested information was subject to exemptions
within the Freedom of Information Act. We added that we hoped to reply to
you by 19 March.

I am writing now to explain that we are still considering if any of the
information you requested is subject to any exemptions. I am very sorry
that we will not be able to complete our deliberations by 19 March as
expected, but now hope to be able to reply to you by 13 April.

Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience this may cause.

Yours sincerely

Steve Kirk

Information Access Team

Information Management Service

Financial and Commercial Group

Ground Floor (NW), Seacole Building

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

show quoted sections

Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

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From: Mr Wyllie

11 March 2010

Dear Mr Kirk,

This is an acknowledgement of your email to me of 11th March 2010,
indicating that on my request relating to Scottish Government-Home
Office relations, you would need extra time.

I look forward to your substantive response. Meantime, thank you
for your assistance - it is much appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Wyllie

Link to this

From: Information Access
Home Office

13 April 2010

Attachment PIT extension letter 13853.pdf
60K Download View as HTML

Please see attached in relation to your FoI Request.

Information Management Service | Financial and Commercial Group | Lower
Ground Floor | Seacole Building | Home Office | 2 Marsham Street | London
SW1P 4DF

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

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From: Mr Wyllie

13 April 2010

Dear Mr Clifford,

Your reference: 13853

Thank you for your email, which you sent today.

However, I seek clarification and some further detail. This is
because this request has now been considered for some three months
to see where the public interest lies in disclosure.

I consider this truly lamentable, grossly outside the spirit of the
Act, perhaps indeed outside the "reasonable" limit the Act
provides. Therefore I request further information as to why it has
taken so long.

The information I seek by way of clarification will provide,
however, confirmation as to whether the delay is "reasonable", and
will inform my decision about whether to request a internal review.
I will also decide then whether to inform the Information
Commissioner's Office, and elected representatives about the delay.

I look forward to a speedy response. I should say that if I don't
get a substantive reply by Friday, I regret very much that this
will result in my requesting an immediate internal review.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Wyllie

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From: FOI Responses
Home Office

15 April 2010

Attachment FOI 13853.pdf
54K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Wylie,

Please find attached correspondence regarding your Freedom of Information
request, Ref: 13853.

Kind regards,

Robert Clifford

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

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From: FOI Responses
Home Office

12 May 2010

Attachment FOI request 13853.pdf
151K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Wyllie,

Please find attached a response to your FoI request of 24 January 2010.
Please accept my apologies for the length of time taken to provide this
information to you.

Kind regards,

Robert Clifford

Robert Clifford I Information Access Team I Information Management
Service (IMS) I Shared Services Directorate I Financial & Commercial Group
I Ground Floor Seacole I 2 Marsham Street I London I SW1P 4DF

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

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