Dear Sir or Madam,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

The Honours Scrutiny Committee (formerly known as the Political
Honours Scrutiny Committee) is separately listed as a public
authority in Schedule 1 Part VI of the FOI Act 2000.

Please could you provide: -

1) details of their Publication Scheme and a contact email address
to send FOI requests to

2) a copy of the terms of reference for the Committee

3) a copy of the related Order of Council dated 18 October 2002 as
cited in Hansard:
<<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...>>

Yours faithfully,

Alex Skene

CABINET OFFICE REFERENCE: FOI256946

Dear Alex Skene

Thank you for your request for information. Your request was received on 17/06/2008 and is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, I will let you know the likely charges before proceeding.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

Your sincerely,

FOI Team
Cabinet Office
E: [Cabinet Office request email]

The Cabinet Office computer systems may be monitored and communications carried on them recorded, to secure the effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes.

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Dear Alex Skene

Pls see the attached response to your FOI request.

Yours sincerely

Abby Oshodi
Honours and Appointments Secretariat

The Cabinet Office computer systems may be monitored and communications carried on them recorded, to secure the effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes.

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Dear Abby Oshodi

Your reference: FOI 256946

Many thanks for your email of 15 July. Please could you assist with
the following as it wasn't clear from your refusal letter:

1) Please could you confirm that you are refusing to publish your
Publication Scheme - "a public authority shall publish its
publication scheme in such manner as it thinks fit" - Freedom of
Information Act 2000, section 19(4). The definition of publish is
to circulate, distribute, or print information for the public at
large.

2) Please could you clarify whether you forgot to attach to your
email reply the "Order of the Council dated 18 October 2002 as
cited in Hansard" - you've added the following text to my request:

"being supplied with the file - Ceremonial Office H31"

this suggests that you are sending me the requested information.

3) To which of the three information requests are you applying the
Public Interest Test to? Please bear in mind that the Information
Commissioner has issued Practice Notices to other public
authorities, for example to the Dept of Health:

"The Department repeatedly applies blanket exemptions to requested
information with the effect of withholding entire documents from
release. This suggests that rather than considering requests on
their own merits, exemptions have been applied on a general
principle. The Commissioner is concerned that the application of
exemptions in this way may have the effect of suppressing
non-exempt information from release."
<<http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...>>
(p3)

4) You mention the "HD Committee" - from a quick internet search
this appears to be the "Committee on the Grant of Honours,
Decorations and Medals" - this puts your full response into doubt
as I was asking for information relating to the Honours Scrutiny
Committee. It looks like you've copied & pasted something
incorrectly!

Based on all the above, please could you clarify whether you've
correctly and fully formulated your response to my information
request?

Kind regards

Alex Skene

Dear Alex Skene

Pls see attached a reply to your FOI request. Pls accept my apologies
for sending you the incorrect response yesterday.

Yours sincerely
Abby Oshodi
Honours and Appointment Secretariat

The Cabinet Office computer systems may be monitored and communications carried on them recorded to secure the effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes.

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Dear Abby Oshodi

Many thanks for your corrected reply and your assistance.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Skene