Minutes of Public Panel meetings

Dear Home Office,

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

You have appointed members of the public to a "Public Panel"
related to the National Identity Scheme. Please send me:

1. The dates and locations of all meetings of the Public Panel
regional groups held to date.

2. The minutes of all meetings of the Public Panel regional groups
held to date.

Yours faithfully,

Andrew Watson

Dear Home Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Home Office's
handling of my FOI request 'Minutes of Public Panel meetings' (your
reference: FOICR 13892/10).

I requested the dates, locations and minutes of all meetings of the
Identity Cards Public Panel regional groups held to date. Your web
site implies that there have been two rounds of meetings, one in
October 2009, the second in January 2010. You refused to supply any
of the requested information, citing section 22(1) of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 ("Information intended for future
publication"). You said that "it is our intention to publish the
information that you have requested by Spring of this year."

I am requesting an internal review on three grounds:

1. The exemption only applies if "it is reasonable in all the
circumstances that the information should be withheld from
disclosure until the date referred to". You are soliciting members
of the public to join these panels, and also soliciting questions
to be put to the panels. It is therefore unreasonable to withhold
minutes saying what the panels have already discussed from those
considering whether to join a panel, or whether to propose a
question.

2. Your rejection also fails the test of "reasonableness" on the
common definition of minutes as the rapidly-available record of the
proceedings of a meeting. It is now five months since the first
round of public panel meetings; if the minutes of these meetings
are intended to be published, it is not reasonable that they be so
long delayed until a completely arbitrary date.

3. Your rejection says "... it is our intention to publish the
information that you have requested by Spring of this year. The
minutes of all the meetings along with associated papers will be
published on the Public Panel pages of our external IPS website."
Spring began two days ago on 21st March, so your self-declared
deadline has expired, but the minutes have not yet appeared on the
web site.

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

Yours faithfully,

Andrew Watson